The White House has named retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as acting national security adviser in the wake of Michael Flynn's resignation Monday night. Flynn resigned amid pressure over his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., and what he had told the White House about those conversations.
Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with Here & Now security analyst Jim Walsh (@DrJimWalshMIT) about the national security implications of Flynn's resignation.
This segment aired on February 14, 2017.


A former Douglas councillor has thrown his name into the mix as hopefuls emerge for the upcoming Douglas East by-election.
Jon Joughin was one of a number of councillors forced to quit recently after it was determined their names weren't on the electoral register.
He's formerly worked for the Island branch of the Communication Workers' Union and stood for the Douglas East seat in 2010.


WELLINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - New Zealand’s overseas investment regulator on Monday turned down Tegel Group Holdings Ltd application to buy land on which it planned to build a huge chicken farm in the country’s north, the firm said.
Tegel, in the process of being acquired by the local unit of Philippines poultry supplier Bounty Fresh Food Inc, wants to construct a farm capable of raising 9 million chickens a year for meat in the town of Dargaville.
That would make it one of the largest chicken farms in the country, but the plans have encountered stiff opposition from the local community, worried about potential noise and pollution as well as the impact on a nearby indigenous Māori meeting and burial ground.
A Tegel spokesman told Reuters by phone that the country’s Overseas Investment Office had told the company on Monday morning that it would turn down its request to buy the land, and that the reasons for the decision would be released later, likely by month-end.
The regulator did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Shares in Tegel had edged up 0.8 percent to NZ$1.23, compared with a 0.25 percent drop in the broader New Zealand market.
Bounty made a NZ$437.8 million ($300 million) cash offer to acquire Tegel in April, which the New Zealand firm’s directors in June unanimously recommended shareholders to accept.


Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury did some duets that may get a release in an album. A dream come true for fans of two icons who left us too soon.
The tracks date back to 1983 when the two legends recorded the songs and later the tracks were stored in Queen’s vaults not to be heard of for decades.
Now, Queen’s former members Brian May and Roger Taylor are announcing they have completed the songs and are ready to release them to the public, pending authorization from the Michael Jackson estate.
Back in July of this year, Rolling Stone, quoting the Times of London, reported three duets recorded by the music greats were getting ready to see the light of day.
The demos were recorded back in 1983, according to the report, at Michael Jackson’s home studio, but as both him and Freddie Mercury were exceedingly busy during that time, a larger project never came to be.
“They were great songs, but the problem was time – as we were both very busy at that period,” Mercury said in an excerpt from Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury, Rolling Stone says.
At the time, Michael Jackson told the magazine that he was a fan of Freddie Mercury (who wasn’t) and that he had reached out and suggested they work together on Jackson’s next album.
However, according to Queen’s manager Jim “Miami” Beach, the duo’s meeting was a less than easy.
“Mercury rang me and said: ‘Miami, dear, can you get over here? You’ve got to get me out of here, I’m recording with a llama,'” said Beach.
Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury’s songs are titled “There Must Be More to Life Than This,” “State of Shock” and “Victory”, which Michael used for his 1984 album with The Jacksons.
Brian May suggested that an album could come out of Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury’s duets, as they discovered other long forgotten pieces.
Would you be excited to listen to previously unreleased duets from Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury?


Has the killing in Yugoslavia finally ended, or is the current cease-fire only a pause by tired soldiers to catch their breath?
A Western diplomat in Belgrade is convinced that for all practical purposes, the bloodletting is over.
Across town, in another embassy, the assessment could not have been more different.
Both men acknowledged that any attempt to forecast the future of Yugoslavia is really a matter of studying an extremely cloudy crystal ball. Facts, they say, are not plentiful.
For his part, Yugoslav Defense Minister Veljko Kadijevic expressed a belief last Thursday that the cease-fire would hold.
Kadijevic said he and Presidents Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia ''fully agreed'' at a meeting last Wednesday how to put the cease-fire into effect and establish lasting peace. He gave no details.
Among the diplomats, optimists say the fighting between Serbia and Croatia may be over because the Serbian-led Yugoslav army is disintegrating, the Croatians have proved stronger than expected and both sides recognize the damage to their economies cannot go on.
The pessimists say the fighting will resume because local army commanders no longer listen to their superiors, they and their men have new scores to settle after the recent bloodshed and many Croatian radicals, emboldened by their militias` successes, are convinced they can win back lost territory if they fight for it.
On Saturday, the Yugoslav army accused Croatia of continuing to blockade and attack military bases.
Croatian radio reported fresh rounds of fighting in eastern and central Croatia, forcing the International Red Cross to suspend operations in the rebel republic until it receives guarantees of safety from the warring sides. The Yugoslav army abandoned its barracks last Thursday in the beleaguered Croatian town of Vinkovci, and diplomats said the pullback apparently was a case of a local commander acting independently of his superiors in Belgrade.
optimistic said it could take a year or two to hammer out a settlement, and that was not likely to happen in a setting outside the country.
The fighting of the past week has overturned some old assumptions, they said-including the widespread belief that the Yugoslav army, with its superior firepower, would roll over Croatia with little difficulty.
Another diplomat said: ''The army has an ill-trained, ill-disciplined, poorly motivated set of troops.'' He said army officers in Bosnia have publicly admitted their troops are out of control and have promised to discipline them.
Diplomats said members of a European observer force that has been in the field reported the Croatians have acquired U.S. Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, presumably on the international black market.
They said the Croatians brought down at least a dozen Yugoslav planes.
The Croatians also have obtained highly effective German-made anti-tank missiles and have destroyed many Yugoslav tanks in addition to capturing 100 of them, they said.
Diplomats said more than 2,000 army troops have deserted, and thousands of reservists called up for army duty have refused to report. Many deserted the army, they said, because of poor food and equipment and poor leadership. Others said they were prepared to fight for Serbia, but not outside its borders.
The civil war started in June with declarations of independence by Croatia and Slovenia from the frail Yugoslav federation of six ethnically divided republics.
Diplomats place the total number of people killed in the war at about 2,500.
The Croatians, they said, fielded 150,000 men, against ''tens of thousands'' for the army and 20,000 Serbian militiamen.
A diplomat said atrocities on both sides have deepened hatreds that already were intense. The atrocities, he said, have not been as extensive as the two sides claim, but there have been at least 10 incidents in which people`s eyes have been gouged out and other acts.
''How can they live together now?'' he said.
A diplomat who predicted the fighting would resume said the hatred has now reached a neighbor-to-neighbor level, with people taking revenge for crimes committed against their relatives 50 years ago.
''There are a lot of crazies out there on both sides,'' he said.
Diplomats said there was a possibility the violence would spread to the province of Kosovo, which is inhabited mainly by ethnic Albanians.
The Albanians, whose provincial government was dissolved by the Serbs a year ago, began voting Thursday and continued to vote Saturday in a referendum asking whether people want independence. The results are scheduled to be announced Sunday.
The Serbs promised to block what they call an illegal act. Diplomats said Kosovo is a tinderbox ready to explode at any moment.


A staff serves beverages at a Starbucks coffee shop in Seoul, South Korea, March 7, 2016. Picture taken March 7, 2016.
Coffee consumption may be in the genes.
Activity of a gene that lowers levels of caffeine-degrading enzymes in the liver is associated with how much coffee people drink, researchers say August 25 in Scientific Reports.
The more active the gene, called PDSS2, the less coffee people drank.
Researchers tracked the coffee-drinking habits of 1,207 people in remote Italian villages and 1,731 people from the Netherlands.
The researchers looked for an association between sipping java and people's genetic makeup. The Dutch quaffed, on average, more than five cups of filtered coffee per day; the Italians sipped about two cups of espresso.
In the Italians, 21 genetic variants in DNA surrounding the PDSS2 gene were linked to coffee consumption, Nicola Pirastu, of the University of Edinburgh, and colleagues found. The strongest-acting variant changed espresso consumption by 1.09 cups per day. Only five of the variants found in the Italians seemed to alter coffee-drinking in Dutch people, and did so to a lesser extent.
Given the larger size of the cups, Dutch people consume about three times as much caffeine per cup as the Italians do. Other caffeine-processing genes, such as CYP1A2 (SN Online: 4/8/11), may control coffee consumption habits at higher caffeine doses, while PDSS2 limits low-level caffeine intake, the researchers speculate.


WASHINGTON – Citing the high number of cross–border tunnels that pop up in Arizona and California, a House committee Tuesday passed a bill toughening laws against the use of tunnels for smuggling underneath the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2012 said there has been “a dramatic increase” in tunnels discovered on the Southwest border in recent years. That is particularly true in Arizona and California, where authorities have found 74 and 40 tunnels, respectively, since fiscal 2006.
“This legislation is vital to the country and my home state of Arizona to combat these cross–border tunnels that are used by ruthless criminal organizations,” said Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Phoenix, a co–sponsor of the measure.
The bill would broaden the current law against tunnel smugglers by also making it a crime to conspire to build, use or finance a border tunnel. Currently the law only allows prosecution of suspects who actually engage in such activity or anyone who “recklessly disregards” tunnel construction or use.
The bill passed the House Judiciary Committee by a voice vote following about 20 minutes of discussion and now heads to the full House for consideration.
Law enforcement officials told a congressional panel last summer that they had found more than 90 illegal tunnels under Arizona’s border with Mexico, the most of any state. The vast majority were in Nogales, Ariz.: Eighty–eight of the 153 tunnels discovered under the border since the 1990s surfaced in the border town.
Quayle pointed to last week’s discovery by U.S. border agents of a 110–foot tunnel underneath Nogales as evidence that more “enhanced investigative and prosecutorial tools” are needed. In that incident, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they seized 550 pounds of marijuana from inside the tunnel.
Quayle said the growth in the number of border tunnels and the increasingly resourceful tactics employed by drug cartels are evidence that stronger penalties are necessary.
Many thanks regarding an additional helpful site.
WASHINGTON – Lots of states feud with the federal government. But Arizona has become something of a poster child of late. Gov. Jan Brewer’s finger-wagging tarmac confrontation with President Barack Obama made national news in January. Her subsequent nomination to a Time magazine online poll of the 100 most influential people in the world was evidence, the magazine said, that “Arizona has faced off with the federal government like no other state in recent memory” under her leadership.


Researchers in Europe have concluded that passionate kisses can involve a lot more than just emotion. They can also include upwards of 80 million bacteria being exchanged between two people.
The findings, published in the journal Microbiome, originated in the Netherlands, where researchers asked 21 couples visiting the Artis Royal Zoo in Amsterdam to have their mouths swabbed.
“To our surprise, we found that those people that are intimately related ... share much more of that bacteria on their tongue than unrelated individuals,” Remco Kort, a microbiologist at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research in Amsterdam and lead author of the study, told National Public Radio.
A single kiss didn’t change the bacteria count significantly, which Kort attributed to the habit couples have of sharing things such as toothpaste and cigarettes. When couples were asked to kiss again after drinking yogurt containing a marker bacteria, researchers were able to pin down how many organisms move from mouth to mouth.
The participants also answered questions about their kissing habits, which revealed men tend to exaggerate how often they kiss, particularly French kiss, their partners. Men said they kissed their partners an average of 10 times a day, while women reported kissing only half as often.
Is all this shared bacteria bad for you? On the contrary, according to Kort. “There’s a number of studies that show that it’s healthy to have a high diversity of microorganisms in your mouth,” he said. So go ahead and pucker up.


In South Africa, prosecutors still have Oscar Pistorius in their sights. The Paralympian was sentenced to more jail time for the murder of his girlfriend earlier this month, but some still feel that he got off lightly. Also, at the international aids summit in Durban, Prince Harry and Elton John add their voices to calls that there is no global slacking off in the battle against HIV. And in Morocco, an 10-year-old chef is being given 5-star ratings by his fans.


Launched in August 2016, Mission Bhagiratha, Telangana’s ambitious project to supply drinking water to every household outside municipal corporation limits, is nearing its March 31, 2019 deadline.
In the first week of December, residents of the Gothikoya tribal village in Bhadradri Kothagudem district, around 600 km southwest of Hyderabad, gathered for an unusual celebration — to garland the new drinking water taps in front of their huts. Days later, four new taps came up in Nagasala village of Mahbubnagar district, a couple of hours by road from the state capital, where residents had to earlier trek for nearly a kilometre to access clean water.
Launched in August 2016, Mission Bhagiratha, Telangana’s ambitious project to supply drinking water to every household outside municipal corporation limits, is nearing its March 31, 2019 deadline. And government officials say 1,00,200 km of the 1,04,749-km network of pipelines — around two-and-a-half times the Earth’s circumference — has been laid.
On the ground, meanwhile, the change is visible.
“Earlier, we had to walk at least a km to fetch drinking water, and had to leave in the morning to fetch it. It was difficult to get our children ready for school and prepare food. After these taps were fixed, that is not a worry anymore. We have been told that taps would soon be fixed just outside or inside our homes,’’ says Mamidal Renuka from Nagasala in Mahbubnagar.
“We used to fetch water from an agricultural well, a stream nearby, or a community tap in the neighbouring village. The water was unclean and frequently caused diarrhoea, especially among our children. Now, we drink directly from our tap,’’ says Madavi Sanjiv from Gothikoya village.
Why a Telangana village gathered to garland its water taps been given a stiff target by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao in his first official meeting after coming back to power this month: Make Telangana the first state where every house receives filtered drinking water through an individual connection in the kitchen or outside.
“As of today, drinking water reaches bulk collection points in 22,947 villages. The deadline to provide water at these collection points to the remaining 1,021 villages is January 10. The deadline to complete the project to provide drinking water through individual household taps is March 31, 2019,’’ says Krupakar Reddy, engineer-in-chief, Mission Bhagiratha.
According to officials, houses in 17,000 habitations were provided individual drinking water tap connections as on December 18, 2018. “These households will start receiving purified drinking water shortly. About 95 per cent work of laying pipelines to the remaining 6,968 villages is completed and only last-mile pipes and taps have to be fixed, which we will complete by March,’’ says Reddy.
Apart from addressing the shortage of drinking water in rural areas, the project is aimed at resolving a serious health crisis in Nalgonda and Medak districts, where much of the ground water is contaminated by fluoride.
“The project covers remote Adivasi tribal hamlets, Lambada settlements, Dalit colonies, habitations in hillocks, and forest dwellings. It is taking us some time to complete the work in remote villages in tribal areas like Sirpur, Adilabad, Nirmal, Asifabad, Kothagudem, where there are habitations in hillocks or inside the forests,’’ says Jogu Ramana, TRS MLA from Adilabad, who attended that meeting.
In Telangana, the primary sources of drinking water are the Godavari and Krishna rivers: northern Telangana and the Godavari basin receive 53.38 TMC from the Godavari; south Telangana receives 32.43 TMC from the Krishna. “The 49,120-km primary pipeline network has already been laid through which water is being pumped. Around 51,080 km of a separate 55,629-km intra-village pipeline network has been completed,’’ says Reddy.
The key question, however, remains, say experts: will the government’s responsibility end with the pipelines? The real challenge will begin after the pipelines are laid and connections are given, says Dr K Shashidhar, Associate Professor at IIT-Hyderabad, who holds a PhD in Environment and Water Resources Engineering from IIT-Madras.
“In such a huge project, everyone will ask whether the water source is enough to sustain supply? So, apart from laying the pipeline network, ensuring daily supply to households becomes very important,’’ he says.


The forum is free and open to the public. Attendees can register at http://hsri.ucmerced.edu/form/valley-fever-meeting-registration, or contact Erin Gaab at (209) 228-4803 or egaab@ucmerced.edu for more information.
Presentations from researchers, clinicians, advocates and community members are intended to spark discussions and lead to a plan to improve health care, research and community interventions. This forum represents the first step in an action plan being developed by a consortium including UC Merced; UCSF Fresno; CSU, Fresno; Community Medical Centers; Children’s Hospital Central California; the public health departments in the eight counties that make up the San Joaquin Valley; and community organizations serving or working with people most at risk for valley fever.
A dozen UC Merced undergraduates will gain an edge in their journey toward a career in biomedical and behavioral research, courtesy of five years of funding from the National Institutes of Health.
The campus recently received a Minority Access to Research Careers grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences that will give the students experience in conducting research, presentation, writing and networking. The MARC funding, – $171,000 per year – is renewable, so there’s a good chance more students will be helped.
The grant is intended to increase the highly trained underrepresented biomedical and behavioral scientists in leadership positions. In the United States, blacks, Latinos and Native Americans are some of the most underrepresented groups in biomedical and behavioral research. With UC Merced’s great diversity, applying for this grant made a lot of sense, said Professor Rudy Ortiz, who applied for the funding.
The program will begin accepting applications in February for the two slots in the second cohort.


I gave a warning last year, didn’t I? We start the new year off fresh with an old favorite of mine, Sorcery 101 by Kel McDonald. As a customary reminder, I mentioned last week that they’re trying to run a kickstarter to publish their first omnibus for the comic. It’s in its last week, so if you’re interested, please please please check it out here. They’re still painfully short of their goal.
It doesn’t always happen, but with the season I managed to devour the entire backlog of pages (roughly 1300) in roughly two days. The joy of this particular series was, in returning to these pages – I had read a few chapters in around the start of the series in early college – was that it wasn’t a chore to slog through the backlog, so to speak. The pacing of the story is well enough done that reading through parts of it was a breeze. I could go into a completely separate article about webcomic artists going back and fixing up their initial chapters (speaking from an artist standpoint myself), I will leave it at saying that her art has most assuredly matured well. A lot of it is still similar to the beginning, but the lines and shading have a feel of crispness to them that wasn’t there in the original black-and-white updates that I remember years ago. And if I’m remembering incorrectly….that happens, too.
The story revolves around Danny, History Teacher at a Boys’ School and his day to day life. Magic hovers between commonplace and something that mundane folk need to be kept in the dark about unless something dire happens. As one travels further along the comic, it doesn’t take long to realize that Danny’s not exactly normal: Blood Bound to one evil-as-hell vampire, attempting to learn sorcery from the closest thing to a “vegan” vampire (Pig’s blood, anyone?), his best friend a werewolf and his wife a magi – which, in this case, seem to be separated from Sorcery in ways I’m still not clear about. Oh yeah, and Danny’s a Prince who’s given up any and all claim to his family’s throne. Complicated life is oversimplifying it.
Yet the story is relatively easy to follow, with each character developing their own distinct personality over the course of the comic. Kel takes great pains to explain the history of the world when it’s necessary to the comic: no superfluous information is really stuffed in your head from the getgo. What starts as something almost slice-of-life turns down the rabbit hole and back again as a three-headed behemoth. But hey, you’ll enjoy yourself in the meantime.
Again, you can read Kel’s other works on her site (as well as Sorcery 101 in its current entirety) and check out her Kickstarter for the first omnibus here. The series ends sometime this year, so now’s as good a time as any to check it out!
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Pipe Dream Archives Former Binghamton goalkeeper Robert Moewes was drafted No. 52 overall in the MLS SuperDraft.
After spending 16 years at the helm of the Binghamton men’s soccer team, head coach Paul Marco knows how good competition in the NCAA can be. Robert Moewes, who played two seasons under Marco as the Bearcats’ starting goalkeeper, left Marco in awe.
It came as no surprise, then, when Toronto FC, a Major League Soccer (MLS) soccer club, selected Moewes with the eighth pick in the third round of MLS SuperDraft last Tuesday. According to Marco, Moewes still wasn’t drafted high enough — he was the fifth goalkeeper picked in the draft.
Moewes is the first BU soccer player to be selected in the MLS SuperDraft, and the highest-drafted BU athlete in any sport. Prior to last season, Moewes transferred to Duke as a graduate student after spending three years at BU — the first of which he was forced to sit out due to NCAA regulations.
Moewes was named America East (AE) Goalkeeper of the Year for two straight years, and led BU to an AE Championship game appearance in 2015. At Duke, he was named the team’s MVP in his final year of eligibility.
Armed with an intimidating stare, Moewes impressed at the MLS Player Combine before the draft. Moewes’ selection, which took place over conference call, was far from glamorous. But now, his focus will turn to immediately impressing Toronto FC.
Moewes could serve as Toronto FC’s third-string goalkeeper or start his career with Toronto FC II, which serves as a reserve team for the MLS club. Quillan Roberts, who served as Toronto FC II’s starting goalkeeper for much of last season, has yet to be re-signed.
Moewes recorded a .736 save percentage at Duke, allowing just 1.36 goals per game. Marco believes Moewes has the ability to succeed in the MLS as long as he remains driven.
Moewes spent the fall semester at Duke pursuing a master’s in management studies, but now plans to finish his degree at a later date. He graduated from BU’s School of Management last spring.
Moewes was one of four MLS draft picks to have played in the AE, an increasingly competitive conference in Division I men’s soccer. Vermont forward Brian Wright was drafted No. 20 overall. Wright ended BU’s season with an overtime goal in both 2015 and 2016.
“Well, we’re certainly excited that [Brian Wright] graduated,” Marco said.


Buying your first home can be one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of your life, but it can also be a scary and stressful process. To ensure you have a smooth transaction from start to finish, familiarize yourself with the home-buying process, note the tools and resources available to you, and get all your ducks in order. To get you started, here’s a list of the top three ways to set yourself up for success.
Before starting your search, make a list of must-have and nice-to-have features for your home and neighborhood. This will help you narrow down your search early on and prevent the hunt from becoming overwhelming.
When starting the home-buying process, ensure your finances are in order by reviewing your credit score and taking steps to boost it, saving for a down payment, and avoiding any major purchases. Then select a lender that is right for you, talk to him or her about your loan options, and get pre-approved for a mortgage. Once you know your budget, you can more effectively find the right home for you.
Working with a great real estate agent can make a world of difference when it comes to navigating the ins and outs of the home buying process. With their vast background and experience and local knowledge of neighborhoods and cities, they will be your go-to resource every step of the way. By implementing these tips and remembering to enjoy the process, you can set yourself up for a great first home buying experience.


Toronto city council has approved regulations for short-term rentals in the city that would apply to such services as Airbnb.
The rules allow the rental of a principal residence only and homeowners won’t be allowed to list secondary suites, such as a basement apartment, for short-term rental.
Entire home rentals will be capped at 180 days a year.
The city will create a registry of short-term rental landlords who would have to declare that their rental property was their principle residence and pay an annual fee of $50.
Around 10,800 Airbnbs were rented out in Toronto in 2016 and the company estimates that over three quarters of their Toronto landlords are renting out space in their principal residence.
It says more than half of all Airbnb listings are in the city’s downtown, and the vast majority — over 80 per cent — accept only short-term bookings.
Fairbnb, a coalition founded by a Toronto-area hospitality workers’ union to advocate for Airbnb legislation, called for rental units to be preserved for long-term renters, not vacation rentals.


The Boys & Girls Club of Easton is gearing up for one of its biggest fundraisers of the year.
Organizers again this year will hold a weekend Play for Kids fundraiser with activities that start Thursday, Oct. 22, and run through Saturday, Oct. 24.
The fundraiser is capped Saturday with a basketball mini-marathon and the Kiss-a-Cow contest.
Play for Kids includes sports and games, live music, tours, food, a diversity forum and a tribute to the Easton Police Department. It is held at the club at 210 Jones Houston Way on South Side Easton.
The public is invited to sit in on festivities, tour the club and participate in some of the activities with kids.
A basketball mini-marathon made up of corporate and small business teams is set for 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24. Organizers are still accepting teams to participate.
"Corporations, small businesses and teams from the Lehigh Valley community can buy playing time and challenge one another," said Dean Young, the club's executive director said. "Our good friends at Crayola have already signed up for the event and are looking for a good corporate challenge game."
Part of the Saturday activities will be dedicated to the Kiss-a-Cow fundraiser, in which people can make a donation to the club by nominating local "celebrities" to kiss a cow.
Folks can make a secure online donation now and nominate their candidate at the Boys and Girls Club website.
The person who garners the most donations has to to pucker up and kiss the cow at noon that Saturday.
Participants include John Reinhart, Easton schools superintendent; Charlene Symia, Easton Area Middle School Principal; motivational speaker Pat Breslin; Gary Lee of Brown-Daub Kia; Jennifer Hillis of The Hillis Group; and Jim Deegan, community editor of The Express-Times and lehighvalleylive.com.
Donations help the nonprofit club with operating and program expenses.
The Boys and Girls Club of Easton served 755 kids in 2014, and 244 kids during an 11-week summer program this past summer. Seventy-three club members graduated from Easton Area High School last June, Young said, and participants in the club's new Imagination Station online reading program saw a 46 percent increase in reading and comprehension proficiency.
Other activities during the fundraiser include music, food and games from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, and an after-school educational program and bicycle stunt show from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22.
Corporations, teams and volunteers interested in participating in and sponsoring Play for Kids this year can find more information on the club website and its Facebook page. You can also email stars@fast.net or call Dean Young at 484-239-2075.


I recently spent a week in a mental hospital. There. I said it.
Family life had been a bit stressful, work was going well, and my side business was growing. Oh, and I was editing a new book about mental illness. But for the better part of a week, I realized I was not okay in my head.
I had suicidal thoughts, and I wasn’t safe to be left alone at my house. A psychiatric ward was the best place for me to recuperate and return to my normal frame of mind.
While I was there, I learned a lot about myself, and how fragile my soul really is. I was truly awestruck by the kindness of the nurses and techs in the ward. And I realized how much my perception of personal freedom was shaped by everyday choices we take for granted—like choosing my own food and schedule.
I also learned a lot about the American church.
Most of the people in my wing of the hospital were either literal widows and orphans, or members of a similarly ignored part of society: a grandma forgotten by her family, a young man whose parents had died tragically and left him ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of life, homeless military veterans whose wartime injuries rendered them unemployable, and struggling drug addicts desperate to get clean but struggling to make it happen.
Each of these people felt that nobody cared about them. From what I could tell, they weren’t wrong.
No visitors came for anyone but me that week. Most of the other patients didn’t receive any incoming phone calls except from social workers. Outgoing calls involved lots of crying and promises to do better—and very few “I love you's." It broke my heart.
We in local churches need to reassess where we spend our resources at a global level, but we also need to do the same individually. We have the opportunity to demonstrate pure and undefiled religion.
Mental illness is still a dirty little secret in the church.
I came face to face with my own unhealthiness in the psych ward. There’s no way to avoid deep introspection when you’re lying in bed under suicide watch.
Every day I carefully consider how much to tell people about my week in the hospital. Because, if I’m honest, I have some shame. I’m a good Christian, so I shouldn’t have ended up where I did (says the lies I’ve been fed). And I know I’m not alone.
Nobody wants to talk about the facts, but mental illness is rampant in America. Approximately 25% of people in the country self-identify with, or have been diagnosed with, one or more mental illnesses.
This includes the “easy” mental illnesses like anxiety or depression, but it’s not limited to those. PTSD impacts people from every walk of life, not just military veterans. Narcissism is an epidemic in corporate America. Sometimes it’s even considered a strategy for success and advancement. As a country, we are not mentally healthy.
And yet, we continue to hear sermons like 7 Steps to a Successful Life, at the exclusion of helping families bring their challenges into the light.
Indeed, most pastors in America say they are not comfortable talking about mental illness or being a part of a support system. Those of us in the church who are struggling mentally feel unwelcome, because nobody knows what to do with us.
So we dry our tears, stuff our fears, and pretend everything is okay. Or, we leave the church altogether. I know churches can do better, and that’s why I’m sharing my story.
Do people with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses attend church and receive emotional support? Every week. It’s possible to treat mental illness as normal, because for so many it is. It’s possible to view depression through an accurate lens rather than as a sin, and to treat anxiety as something deeper than a lack of faith.
Churches can become a safe haven for the mentally ill.
My pastor visited me while I was in the psych ward, and what he said to me gave me hope—for my own future and the church as a whole.
My pastor didn’t shy away me. He visited me and gave me a snippet of hope in a dark place. He knew what to do, and he did it.
I’ve felt the affirmation of hearing some of my own mental health conditions mentioned in sermons. I’ve seen groups of believers rally around a suicidal man to affirm his worth, staving off the darkness with love. I have watched as an anxious woman is enveloped in care instead of ridicule.
So, I choose hope. I believe the future will hold powerful moments where the mentally ill feel inclusion, acceptance, and hope.
There’s one more thing I believe: no person can achieve all that God has in mind for them when they exist outside a local church body. Mentally ill or otherwise, each of us only becomes the best version of ourselves, the most clear representation of Jesus, living the most sanctified lives, and expressing the fullness of what God has placed into our hearts—together.
It’s time to stop withholding this opportunity for maturity from those with mental illnesses. No more should the lie be told that only the mentally well can serve God and pursue Him wholeheartedly. With the exception of Jesus, God has only used broken humans to accomplish his purposes.
Have you ever felt “not okay” in your head? Most have at one time. Instead of running from the reality or shaming yourself, will you bring your thoughts and feelings to God?
The church won’t get any better at caring for the mentally ill if we don’t talk about it. We need to engage in honest conversations around what mental illness looks like—and welcome people to bring their thoughts and feelings to us.
That’s when real change will start. The time is now.
Should You Serve the Church When You Are Struggling with Depression?


JB Hi-Fi has lifted first-half profit 5.5 per cent to $160.1 million despite volatile trading in electronics and home entertainment over Christmas and January.
JB Hi-Fi has lifted first-half profit 5.5 per cent to $160.1 million despite volatile holiday trading for the electronics and home entertainment retailer.
Revenue for the six months to December 31 rose 4.2 per cent to $3.84 billion, with comparable sales in Australia, New Zealand and at The Good Guys - the white goods business it bought in 2016 - all going up.
Communications, games hardware, audio, fitness and connected technology drove a 3.0 per cent increase in comparable sales from JB Hi-Fi Australia, while comparable sales rose 12.6 per cent in NZ and 1.5 per cent at The Good Guys.
The retailer said on Monday it expects full-year profit to rise as much as 5.1 per cent, but struck a cautious note after comparable sales growth slowed across the board in January.
"The company continues to see positive sales growth, however in the Christmas quarter and January there has been increased volatility and a bias in customer purchasing towards key promotional periods," JB Hi-Fi said in a statement.
JB Hi-Fi's Australian online sales rose 21 per cent on the prior corresponding period to $144.4 million, meaning roughly $1 out of every $20 in sales is generated that way.
JB Hi-Fi gave full-year net profit guidance of between $237 million and $245 million, an increase of between 1.6 and 5.1 per cent.
It expects to open five JB Hi-Fi stores and two Good Guys stores in Australia over the 12-month period, while closing two JB Hi-Fi's in Australia and one in NZ.
At 1150 AEDT, JB Hi-Fi shares were 74 cents, or 3.3 per cent, higher at $23.32 against the backdrop of a lower overall market.
The stock was outperforming a flat consumer discretionary sector.


BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Department of Theatre and Dance at the University at Buffalo will present Zodiaque Dance Company: Zodiaque 34 -- Celebration Rising at 8 p.m. on Feb. 22, 23, 28, 29 and March 1 and at 2 p.m. on Feb. 24 and March 2 in the Drama Theatre in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.
Zodiaque Dance Company, which celebrates its 34th year in 2007-08, embraces a diversity of styles in both dance and dancers. Zodiaque serves as a professional training ground for emerging dancers and student choreographers to evolve into intelligent and resourceful working artists.
Two guest artists will set works on the Zodiaque Company this spring. Mark Santilliano will create a new work: "Off the Deep End." This is his first time working with the Zodiaque Company. Santilliano, a former member of the famed Pilobulus Dance Company, also teaches at Mercyhurst College and has his own company.
Terri Filips, associate professor at Niagara University, will also create a new work for the company. Her work explores inventive partnering and rhythm layering in a stylized tap work -- "Break Thru."
The Zodiaque Dance Fund has made Santilliano's and Filips' work with the company possible.
Four dance faculty members will also contribute new works to the performance: from a contemporary Paso Doble, to a fresh outlook on Lennon and McCartney's lyrics, to a view through Frank Lloyd Wright's windows. Works from Jeanne Fornarola, Joyce Miller Lichtenberger, Tom Ralabate and Kerry Ring will complete the company's spring concert.
The concert also brings two student choreographers to the studio and stage -- Sarah Kaye and Hayley Sunshine. The vision and youthful insight that these promising artists create is an exciting addition to the concert. The Zodiaque Dance Company concerts also allow and encourage student technicians to hone their skills in a professional setting. Design students Collin Ranney and Susan Zorn will create costumes and lights, respectfully, for the concert.
Tickets for Zodiaque Dance Company are $16 general admission, and $8 for students and seniors. Tickets are available from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday in the Center for the Arts Box Office and all Ticketmaster locations, including ticketmaster.com. To charge tickets, call 852-5000; in Canada, call 1-416-870-8000. For group sales, call 645-6771. For more information, call 645-ARTS. Students (of any school) must present valid student ID at the Center Box Office to receive discount.


* Ultra-high-technology weapons such as "smart-bombs" and cruise missiles managed to hit military targets without damaging civilian sites nearby.
* Unguided "dumb" bombs were no more effective than in past wars in attacking point targets such as bridges or tanks.
* Patriots are very effective in homing-in on the body of an incoming Scud or similar tactical ballistic missile. But you can't count on it to destroy the warhead.
* Why Iraq never used its chemical and biological weapons against allied troops, even though it had them in ample supply.
* What the actual rate of accuracy of the U.S.' "smart" weapons was.
* How well the chemical protection suits used by American forces would have worked had Iraq used these weapons.
* Whether Iraq would have been able to mount chemical weapons on Scud missiles.
* Whether Iraq still possesses any Scud missiles, and if so, how many.


A Chesnee man was charged with attempted murder after allegedly throwing a tire iron at a man that was struck in the head on Aug. 27.
Jonathan Cleveland McCraw, 29, of Piedmont Road, Chesnee, was in the Spartanburg Detention Center on a $16,000 bond on charges of attempted murder and malicious damage to property.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called to a disturbance with a weapon call at 2:55 p.m. Aug. 27 on Bain Drive in Chesnee.
The victim was bleeding on the side of his face and told deputies the suspect threw a tire iron at him through the window of a front end loader and hit him on the side of the head.
The incident happened during an argument over a bathtub leak at the suspect’s house and attempts to turn off the water, according to the report.
The victim suffered a facial injury that required immediate medical attention, deputies said.
Damage to the front-end loader was estimated at $1,844.


Mr. Yeo Yong-boon (George) is no longer as an Executive Chairman of the Board of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Effective May 31, 2019. He has been our Executive Director since 25November 2013 and has been the Chairman of ourCompany since August 2012. Mr.Yeo is also deputy chairman and a director of KGL. From 1988 to 2011, Mr. Yeo served for 23 years in the SingaporeGovernment, as Minister of State for Finance, then as Minister for Information and the Arts, Health,Trade and Industry, and Foreign Affairs. Prior to 1988, Mr.Yeo served in various capacities in the Singapore Armed Forces, Republic of Singapore Air Force and Defence Ministry, including Chief-of-Staff of the Air Staff and Director of Joint Operations and Planning in the Defence Ministry, attaining the rank of Brigadier-General. Mr. Yeo is a member of the Foundation Board of theWorld Economic Forum, the Berggruen Institute onGovernance, the Asia-PacificAdvisory Board of Harvard Business School, the International Advisory Board of IESE Business School and Economic Development Commission, Hong Kong. Recently Mr. Yeo was appointed a member of the Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See. Mr. Yeo has been an independent non-executive director of AIA Group Limited (a listed company on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with stock code 1299) since November 2012. Mr. Yeo was awarded the Philippines’ Order of Sikatuna, India’s Padma Bhushan and Australia’s Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia. Mr. Yeo graduated from Cambridge University with a double first in engineering in 1976 and also obtained a master of business administration degree (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School in 1985. In addition, Mr.Yeo was a visiting scholar to Peking University fromSeptember to December 2011 and remains a visiting scholar at the Lee KuanYewSchool of Public Policy.
Mr. Cheng Chi Wai serves as Chief Financial Officer of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Mr Cheng is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants, as well as a chartered accountant and a chartered secretary. Mr Cheng has 26 years of experience in auditing, financial control and corporate finance and previously worked in an international accounting firm and held key finance positions in several companies whose shares are listed on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange. He is an adviser of the Advisory Board to Hong Kong Auxiliary Medical Services Officers’ Club. Mr Cheng obtained a bachelor of arts degree in accountancy from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1996 and an executive master’s degree in business administration from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2008.
Mr. Shen Chung-kui (also known as Richard SHEN) serves as Chairman of Kerry TJ Logistics, a subsidiary of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. He has over 45 years of experience in the logistics industry, ranging from trucking, container terminal, port operation, warehousing businesses and documentation. He is responsible for overseeing the Taiwan logistics operations of the Group. Mr Shen is currently the chairman of Taiwan Route-Permitted Truck Transportation United Association and Hong Kong Business Association in Taiwan. He is also a member of the Federation of Hong Kong Business Associations Worldwide. Mr Shen graduated from the Shipping and Transportation Management Faculty of the National Taiwan Ocean University in 1972. He also completed various training courses, including Dale Carnegie Course Training in San Francisco, United States in 1983, General Management Program at Ashridge College in London, United Kingdom in 1993 and Shipping Management research study at China Maritime Institute, Taiwan in 1988.
Mr. Ma Wing Kai (William) serves as Managing Director and Executive Director of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Mr Ma has been a Director of the Company since June 1999 and designated as Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of the Company since April 2004. Mr Ma joined the group of KHL in September 1990 and served as an executive director of KPL from March 2004 to November 2013. Mr Ma has also been a director of Kerry TJ since November 2008. Mr Ma currently serves in the Aviation Development Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee on Admission of Quality Migrants and Professionals of the Hong Kong Government. Mr Ma is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Asian Institute of Supply Chain and Logistics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Mainland Business Advisory Committee and the Hong Kong-Taiwan Business Cooperation Committee of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (“HKTDC”) and the Nanyang Business School Advisory Board at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He had served the Logistics Development Council of the Hong Kong Government and the Logistics Services Advisory Committee of HKTDC for 6 years. Mr Ma obtained a bachelor of science (management sciences) degree from the University of Lancaster, the United Kingdom in 1985, and completed an executive supply chain programme at Harvard Business School in 2000.
Mr. Benjaathonsirikul Kledchai serves as Managing Director - Thailand Logistics Operations of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. He is also a director of Kerry Logistics (Thailand) Limited, a subsidiary of the Company, and other subsidiaries in Thailand. Mr Benjaathonsirikul is also an independent director and an audit committee member of Shangri-La Hotel Public Company Limited in Thailand (a company listed on The Stock Exchange of Thailand). He has over 20 years of experience in port logistics and transportrelated businesses. Mr Benjaathonsirikul manages a fully integrated logistics operation in Thailand ranging from freight forwarding to distribution and transport and port logistics. He obtained a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom in 1978.
Mr. Hung Wai Shing serves as Financial Controller of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Mr Hung joined the warehouse division of the group of KHL in May 1991. He was transferred to the Hong Kong properties division of the group of KHL in August 1993 before joining the Company. Mr Hung is a Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He obtained a bachelor of arts degree from City Polytechnic of Hong Kong (now known as City University of Hong Kong) in 1992.
Mr. Erni Edwardo serves as an Executive Director of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. He has been our Executive Director since 25 November 2013. Mr Erni has been a Director of the Company since 2011 and is also the Managing Director of the China and North Asia region. He is also a director of Kerry TJ. Mr Erni manages a portfolio of logistics and warehousing companies in China. He joined the Company in January 1994 and has approximately 20 years of experience in the growing logistics industry of China. Mr Erni currently serves as vice-chairman of several industry associations including the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing, the Integrated Transport Federation of China Communications and Transportation Association, and China Association of Warehouses and Storage. Mr Erni completed several advanced management and professional study programmes focusing on strategy and leadership, including most recently a joint Tsinghua and University of North Carolina Supply Chain Programme in 2014. Others include a training course held by the Harvard Business School in association with the School of Management at Fudan University in 2013; management courses held by Tianjin University in 2011; Beijing University in 2009; and Tsinghua University in 2008. Mr Erni obtained a Master of Business degree in Logistics Management from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia in 2005.
Mr. Kuok Khoon Hua has been appointed as Chairman of the Board of the company, Effective May 31, 2019. he is no longer as an Executive Director of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Effective May 31, 2019. He has been our Executive Director since 25 November 2013. Mr Kuok has also served as a director of KHL since January 2010, as a director of Kerry Wines Limited (a subsidiary of KGL) since March 2011, as deputy managing director of KHL since January 2012, and director of KGL since August 2012. Mr Kuok joined KHL in 2004 and is currently involved in the management of KHL, including KHL’s investment, legal, human resources and wine divisions. From 2003 to 2004, Mr Kuok was a business development executive with Kuok Oils & Grains Pte Ltd and was also a director of Kuok (Singapore) Limited from 2003 to 2007. Mr Kuok obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University in 2003.
Mr. Ko Fuk Yuen (Kenneth) serves as an Executive Director - International Freight Forwarding of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Mr Ko is also a director of Kerry Freight (Hong Kong) Limited, a whollyowned subsidiary of the Company, and responsible for the development of the global freight forwarding business of the Group. He has over 20 years of experience in the logistics industry. He serves as a vice-chairman of the executive committee of Hongkong Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics Limited since 2011. Mr Ko obtained a bachelor of management studies degree from the University of Hong Kong in 2003.
Mr. Lee Wai Shun (Wilson) serves as Director - Information Technology of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Mr Lee is the Director of Information Technology and is responsible for overseeing the global information technology development of the Group. He has over 25 years of experience in information system development and technology management in a number of multinational listed companies. Mr Lee obtained a bachelor of science degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1989 and a master of science degree in corporate governance and directorship from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2010.
Mr. Tan Kai Whatt (Robert) serves as Director of Subsidiary of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Mr Tan is the Managing Director of the South Asia region and is responsible for the development and expansion of the Group’s network in South and South East Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. He has 20 years of experience in the logistics industry. Mr Tan obtained his master’s degree from the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines in 2003.
Mr. Wilcock Gary serves as Managing Director O European Logistics Operations of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. He joined our Group in April 2002 following our acquisition of Trident International Limited (now known as Kerry Logistics (UK) Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of our Company) where he started his career in May 1982. He is the managing director in charge of the European logistics operations of our Group. He is also a director of Kerry Logistics Holding (Europe) Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of our Company headquartered in Europe, and the managing director of Kerry Logistics (UK) Limited. He has more than 30years’ experience in the logistics industry and in particular trading between the United Kingdom and Asia.
Ms. Lee Pui Nee serves as Company Secretary of Kerry Logistics Network Limited since September 18, 2013. Ms. Lee joined KPL in May 2005 and was transferred to ourCompany tooversee theGroup’s company secretarial matters in January 2010. She was awarded the Professional Diploma in Company Secretaryship and Administration from City Polytechnic of Hong Kong (now known as City University of Hong Kong) in 1989. She is an associate member of The Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators and The Hong Kong Institute of Chartered Secretaries.
Mr. Chin Siu Wa (Alfred) is no longer as Non-Executive Director of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. Effective June 01, 2019. He has been our Non-executive Director since 25 November 2013. Mr Qian has been a director of KPL since September 2007, was re-designated as an executive director of KPL in July 2009 and subsequently re-designated as a co-managing director of KPL in August 2013. Mr Qian served as vice president of development at Shangri-La Asia Limited (a company listed on the Stock Exchange with stock code 69) from February 2004 to September 2007 and as general manager of Zhongshan City Tourism Group Company, a state owned enterprise primarily engaged in the business of tourism development, from January 1996 to May 2002, where he was responsible for the day-to-day general management, asset management, and business development primarily for the China market. Mr Qian is also a member of the executive committee of KPL and is responsible for KPL’s property development business in China. Mr Qian graduated from South China Normal University in 1986 and completed an advanced management programme at Harvard Business School in 2002.
Ms. Khoo Shulamite N. K. is Non-Executive Independent Director of the company. She was most recently Group Chief Human Resource Officer of AIA Group Limited (“AIA Group”) (stock code: 1299) and a member of AIA Group’s Executive Committee. She was responsible for spearheading AIA Group’s overall human capital strategies and implementation across a diversity of markets, geographies and culture. Prior to joining AIA Group in 2011, Ms Khoo was the Group EVP and Global Head of Human Resources of AXA Group SA (stock code: EPA: CS; OTCQX: AXAHY), based in Paris, with global responsibility for the group’s leadership and people development strategy. She joined AXA Group in 2005 as Regional Head, Human Resources & Internal Communications for AXA Asia, based in Hong Kong. Ms Khoo spent the early part of her career with Prudential plc (stock code: LSE: PRU; NYSE: PUK; HKSE: 2378) and worked in different frontline business, client services and operational roles in Singapore and Hong Kong. Between 1984 and 2004, she has served in different roles as Regional Head of Human Resource of Asia of Prudential Corporation Asia, as well as Head of Human Resource, Head of Insurance Operations and Head of Underwriting and Claims of Prudential Singapore. Ms Khoo has been a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development since 2013, and a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Singapore Public Service Division since 2011. Ms Khoo gained her Bachelor of Science degree from University of Toronto, Canada in 1983.
Ms. Wong Yu Pok (Marina), CPA, serves as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. She has been our Independent Non-executive Director since 25 November 2013. Ms Wong has served as an independent non-executive director of KPL since May 2008. She is also a member of the audit and corporate governance committee, the remuneration committee and the nomination committee of KPL. Ms Wong had worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers (“PwC”) for over 30 years, specialising in PRC tax and business advisory services, and has extensive experience in advising both Hong Kong and foreign investors on the structuring of their businesses and investments in China. Ms Wong retired as a partner from PwC in July 2004, and joined Tricor Services Limited as a director from September 2004 to February 2006. Ms Wong is now an independent non-executive director of Hong Kong Ferry (Holdings) Company Limited (a company listed on the Stock Exchange with stock code 50) and Luk Fook Holdings (International) Limited (a company listed on the Stock Exchange with stock code 590), and an independent director of China World Trade Center Co., Ltd. (a company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with stock code 600007). Ms Wong is a Fellow Member of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Ms Wong obtained a higher diploma in Accountancy from Hong Kong Technical College (now known as Hong Kong Polytechnic University) in 1968 after completing a three-year full-time course in accountancy from 1965 to 1968.
Mr. Yeo Liat Kok (Philip), (also known as Noel Philip Yeo), serves as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Kerry Logistics Network Limited. He has been our Independent Non-executive Director since 25 November 2013. He is the chairman and independent director of Ascendas India Trust (a listed trust in Singapore with stock codeCY6U) since June 2007 and an independent non-executive director of City Developments Limited (a listed company on the Singapore Stock Exchange with stock code C09) since May 2009. He is also an independent director of Hitachi Ltd (a listed company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with stock code 6501) since June 2012. In March 2013, Mr. Yeo assumed chairmanship of Economic Development Innovations Singapore Pte Ltd. In January 2008, Mr. Yeo assumed chairmanship of Hexagon Development Advisors Pte Ltd. In April 2007, Mr. Yeo was appointed as chairman of SPRING Singapore, a Singapore Government agency for enterprise development. Mr. Yeo obtained a bachelor’s degree in applied science in industrial engineering in 1970 and an honorary doctorate degree in engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1997. He obtained a master of science degree in systems engineering from the then University of Singapore (now known as the National University of Singapore) in 1974 and a master of business administration degree from Harvard University in 1976. He received a doctor of medicine degree from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden in May 2006, an honorary doctor of science degree from Imperial College London, United Kingdom in November 2007, the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from the Japanese Government in December 2007, the Distinguished Service (Star) award from the Singapore’s Labour Movement, National Trade Unions Congress in May 2008, an honorary doctor of letters degree from the National University of Singapore in July 2011 and an honorary doctor of law degree from Monash University of Australia in November 2011.
Mr. Zhang Yi Kevin is Non-Executive Independent Director of the company. He is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Ascendent Capital Partners. Prior to that, Mr Zhang was a Managing Partner of Trustbridge Partners from 2009 to 2011, and was with Goldman Sachs Asia LLC (“Goldman Sachs”) from 1994 to 2009. During his time at Goldman Sachs, Mr Zhang acted in various roles as Managing Director and Head of Asian Fixed Income Sales in the Securities Division, Partner and Head of China Financing Group in the Investment Banking Division, and Partner and Co-Head of the Asian Special Situations Group in the Securities Division. Mr Zhang also served on Goldman Sachs’ Asian Management Committee, Firm Business Practices Committee and China Operating Committee. Mr Zhang currently co-chairs the Yale School of Management Greater China Board of Advisors. He is also a member of the Yale Center Beijing Advisory Committee, a governor of The Independent Schools Foundation in Hong Kong, and a board director of The Silver Lining Foundation in China. Mr Zhang earned his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Yale School of Management in 1994.


It’s official: Atlantic City’s former Trump Taj Mahal casino now belongs to Hard Rock International.
The sale of the shuttered casino opened in 1990 by President Donald Trump was finalized Friday.
The Florida-based Hard Rock, which manages gambling and resort operations for the Seminole Indian tribe, bought the casino March 1 from billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
Icahn is a close friend and adviser to the president. He acquired the Taj Mahal last year from bankruptcy court after Trump was no longer involved with it, aside from a 10 percent ownership stake in its parent company in return for the use of his name.
Icahn closed it in October after a devastating strike by union workers seeking the restoration of health insurance and pension benefits that the casino’s owner before Icahn, Trump Entertainment Resorts, got a bankruptcy court judge to eliminate in 2014.
Hard Rock plans a press conference Wednesday to unveil its plans for the casino, which it wants to reopen next spring. The purchase price has not been revealed, but CEO James Allen has said the purchase and extensive renovations will together cost about $300 million.
It is likely to feature plenty of guitars, big and small, inside and out. The guitar has become the symbol of the Hard Rock chain, and the company says it owns the world’s largest collection of rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia.
Hard Rock has long toyed with the idea of opening a casino resort in Atlantic City. In 2011, the company proposed — and soon abandoned — a music-themed casino resort at the southern end of the Boardwalk that was to feature items from the state’s rock ‘n’ roll history.
Hard Rock also still plans to seek permission to open a casino at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford if voters eventually amend the state constitution to allow casino gambling beyond Atlantic City. A referendum to allow it last year was crushed at the polls.


Dubai: The 600-page new Brexit deal has added more confusion to the future of economic relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU), according to reports.
The Brexit deal is only hours old, but disagreements between UK and EU officials over what it means have already begun. Buried among the hundreds of pages published on Wednesday, there’s reference to the two sides pursuing comprehensive arrangements in their future relationship, ‘building on the single customs territory’ set out in the draft divorce treaty.
According to a Guardian report the UK was understood to have agreed that an independent arbitration committee will judge when a UK-wide customs backstop could be terminated, comprised of an equal number of British and EU representatives plus an independent element.
Ministers were expected to study the Northern Ireland specific elements in the backstop deal. A Guardian report quoting UK government sources said the region would not be treated differently in customs terms, although Brussels sources said Northern Ireland would have special status in the backstop in terms of the customs union and single market.
According to the available information, the British negotiating team won a victory in persuading Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator that the detail of any fisheries arrangement will be in the political declaration.
The backstop will also require the UK to maintain a “level playing field” with the EU on social and environmental regulation, with negotiators understood to have “heavily boosted” what that will mean with clear detail.
In almost 600 pages of documents released late on Wednesday, there were three short paragraphs devoted to financial services. Under the envisioned regime, the UK will be dependent upon EU goodwill; Brussels officials will have unilateral power to shut the door on short notice if they determine there’s not a level regulatory playing field.
Even if the UK Parliament clears the Brexit agreement — and that’s still far from a sure thing — negotiations on a new financial rule book will continue well into 2020. The bottom line is that banks, brokers and asset managers continue to face talks going off the rails.
“Our message to businesses continues to be: prepare for the worst, hope — and advocate vigorously — for the best,” Charles Brasted, a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells, said in a statement.


The Edmonton Police Service William Nixon Training Centre in northeast Edmonton, were an off-duty officer was accidentally shot on Sunday, April 1, 2018.
An Alberta sheriff was rushed to hospital Sunday morning after she accidentally shot herself during a training exercise at a police gun range in northeast Edmonton.
The shooting happened Sunday morning, at the Constable William Nixon Memorial Training Centre just off 129 Avenue and 9 Street NE.
Edmonton police said at around 11:30 a.m., an accidental discharge happened during a sheriff training session. The woman suffered non-life-threatening injuries to her lower body.
Officers shut down several northside roads while a police-escorted ambulance took the officer to the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Edmonton Police Service spokesperson Carolin Maran said the officer is reportedly part of a group of Alberta sheriffs who booked the EPS facility for training. No one else was injured during the training exercise.
This is the second time an officer has accidentally shot themselves at the same gun range this year.
In April, an off-duty Edmonton police officer accidentally shot himself in the leg while at weekend event. The officer was part of an EPS gun club, in which officers get together on days off to do target practice.
That officer was injured in the upper leg, and his injuries were not life-threatening.


TIM PALMER: After 24 hours of political ping-pong, the issue over how to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme appears to be settled, for now at least.
The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has offered conditional support for increasing the Medicare levy, prompting the Prime Minister Julia Gillard to bring that legislation forward. But Mr Abbott doesn't want the increased levy funding it to become permanent, and is vowing to repeal it once the budget returns to strong surplus.
From Canberra, Simon Cullen reports.
SIMON CULLEN: Just yesterday the Prime Minister was gearing up for an election campaign fight over how to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
JULIA GILLARD: Australians will have an opportunity to make a choice in September this year.
SIMON CULLEN: But it now appears the matter will be settled well before voters go to the polls.
JULIA GILLARD: I will bring to the Parliament the legislation to increase the Medicare levy by half a per cent.
SIMON CULLEN: Julia Gillard initially said she'd wait until the next parliament to bring on the legislation, arguing there needed to be clear bipartisan support for how to pay for the scheme, the Government now calls DisabilityCare. But the legislation will now be introduced in around a fortnight's time, prompted by Tony Abbott's conditional offer of support for the move.
TONY ABBOTT: We are prepared to consider a supporting - a modest increase in the Medicare levy to make sure that this happens as soon as possible. We do want to see this come into the Parliament in this term, there's five weeks of parliament remaining, and I don't see why we can't get this dealt with.
JULIA GILLARD: The Leader of the Opposition today has said he is prepared to support an increase in the Medicare levy. The Leader of the Opposition has changed his mind on this matter and I welcome that change of mind.
SIMON CULLEN: But Mr Abbott's offer of support is not without strings. The Medicare levy increase would only provide about 60 per cent of the Commonwealth's ongoing contributions for the scheme and the Coalition is demanding to know where the rest of the money will come from.
TONY ABBOTT: No one should ever give this particular government a blank cheque. But on this particular subject I am prepared to take the Prime Minister at her word. Let her bring the legislation into the Parliament but let her also be upfront with the Australian public about how this is going to be funded.
SIMON CULLEN: The Finance Minister Penny Wong says this month's budget will include the details the Opposition Leader is after.
PENNY WONG: Our budget will make clear further structural savings, that build on the previous structural saves, some of which he opposed, to ensure we can fully fund this DisabilityCare into the long term.
SIMON CULLEN: And she's challenged the Coalition to put forward its own savings plan.
PENNY WONG: If Tony Abbot's going to say 'we'll put up your saves' I think he should be asked where his are, because some of the savings measures which benefit the budget over the long term, which is what we're talking about, are the very things he opposes.
So here he - on the one had he wants more structural saves but he is opposed to private health insurance, the savings measures, he's opposed the baby bonus saves measures and now he's saying 'oh but you've gotta put more on the table'.
SIMON CULLEN: If the Coalition does win the election it'll be up to them to decide how to pay for DisabilityCare in the long term. Mr Abbott has already signalled that he'll seek to remove the Medicare levy increase once the budget's back into a strong surplus and the policy can be funded without it. But that could be a while off if the Government's recent downgrade of revenue forecasts persists in the long term.
With the Coalition now backing the levy increase the Government won't need the votes of crossbench MPs even though many of them have declared support.
John Della Bosca who heads the disability lobby group Every Australian Counts has paid tribute to both sides of politics in reaching this point.
JOHN DELLA BOSCA: Today is a day we can reflect and see the best of Australian politics. We've seen the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, inch towards having a bipartisan position on the funding of a National Disability Insurance Scheme, the most contentious and difficult part of the scheme.
SIMON CULLEN: At a state level there's growing momentum for the full scheme to be rolled out nationally with Tasmania today joining New South Wales, South Australia and the ACT in signing up to the plan.
The state's Premier Lara Giddings hopes the remaining states will still follow suit.
LARA GIDDINGS: Critically important for those who are living with a disability in our community, to know that they will get the help they need when they need it. So this is a historic day, this reform is as big as Medicare in its day and is absolutely fundamental.
TIM PALMER: Tasmania's Premier Lara Giddings ending Simon Cullen's report.


The pan-European STOXX 600 index closes almost 0.4% higher, with most major bourses and sectors in positive territory.
Zalando jumps to the top of the European benchmark, gaining nearly 11% after saying it expects to post an operating profit for the first quarter.
Earnings from several U.S. firms beat analyst expectations Tuesday, while German data helped mitigate concerns of a global economic downturn.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed provisionally almost 0.4% higher, with most major bourses and sectors in positive territory.
Looking at individual stocks, shares of German online retailer Zalando rose to the top of the European benchmark, gaining nearly 11% after the firm said it expected to post an operating profit for the first quarter.
UniCredit also rose following a $1.3 billion settlement with U.S. authorities over alleged sanctions violations. Shares of the Italian bank were up nearly 3%.
At the other end of the scale, recruitment giant Hays tumbled toward the bottom of the index despite posting a rise in profits on Tuesday. The company said it was mindful of macroeconomic conditions. Shares of the London-listed stock were down almost 3%.
Equities also got a boost from the latest economic data. German research institute ZEW said Tuesday that its investor sentiment index for the country improved to 3.1 in April, up from -3.6 in March, and better than an expected reading of 0.8.
The data has helped mitigate concerns of a global economic downturn. Investors are now keenly awaiting Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) data due Wednesday.
Market focus is largely attuned to corporate earnings, with several U.S. firms reporting their first-quarter revenues this week after underwhelming results from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup on Monday.
On Wall Street, better-than-expected earnings from the likes of Johnson & Johnson and BlackRock helped edge the major U.S. indexes into positive territory.
U.S. industrial output stumbled in March, however, falling 0.1 percent from February. The manufacturing output component of the data fell 1.1 percent in the first quarter at an annual rate. That marked the first drop since the third quarter of 2017.


With less than two weeks to go before the inter-Korean summit, working-level officials have been discussing setting up a telephone hotline between the leaders.
South Korea's Presidential Office said Sunday. that the two sides held talks on Saturday, at the truce village on the border.
The hotline will let President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to hold phone conversations. as they prepare to hold talks on April 27th.


I can sympathize with Cleveland’s desire to play “what if” with the NBA Finals. The Cavs were missing two of their best players and LeBron James gave the Warriors all they could handle on his own. But Cleveland’s game of “what if” overlooks the Warriors’ counters to all their hypotheticals. What if Kyrie Irving didn’t get injured? Well, what if the Warriors packed the lane and denied him looks at the rim? What if Kevin Love was healthy? Well, what if the Warriors exposed his defensive weakness by going small and driving straight at him? What if LeBron James had help? Well, what if the Warriors’ team defense was flexible and fast enough to shut down that help while still locking down James? On Christmas day, theWarriors team not only dispatched the Cavs — for the fourth time in a row — but put to rest all the “what ifs” but one. What if the Warriors were the better team last season, and would have won the Finals even againsta healthy Cleveland squad?
The Warriors met the Cavs’ physical defense with their own hard-nosed play. And the Warriors had more success than the Cavs when it came to disrupting offensive flow. The Cavs shot31.6% from the field, and the carnage was spread equally across their line-up. When Cleveland tried to get Irving going through penetration, the Warriors shaded off the Cavs’ non-offensive players (Mozgov, Thompson, sometimes even Shumpert) and clogged the lane. Irving never found any rhythm, and he was reduced to low percentage outside shots (finishing the night 4-15 from the field; 0-6 from three). The Cavs’ efforts at getting Love going were even less successful. The Warriors’ resilient help defense denied Love open mid-range looks. As soon as he got the ball, he typically was facing not only his defender, but another Warrior harassing him from the perimeter. He was reduced to highly contested shots in the lane or three pointers — and shot poorly from both (5-16 from the field; 0-5 from three). But the Warriors’ real exploitation of Love came at the other end. Luke Walton closed the game with a modified version of the death line-up — Curry, Thompson, a terrific Shaun Livingston, Iguodala and Green. David Blatt countered by pulling his center, leaving nothing but Love’s pantomime defense between the Warriors’ and the basket. Curry sealed the game with a series of beautiful crunch-time lay-ups over Love. The player that the Cavs supposedly missed so desperately during last year’s Finals arguably was the key to the Warriors’ game-ending run.
As the Warriors exposed the limitations of Cleveland’s supporting cast, James once again tried to shoulder the entire load himself. There was a brief moment in the fourth quarter, following back-to-back slashes to the rim, when it looked as if James might be able to dragthe lifeless remainder of the Cavs’ roster to victory. But as in the Finals, LeBron’s devolution to hero ball played into the Warriors’ plans. He spent much of the night pounding the ball in isolation to diminishing returns (10-26 from the field; 4 turnovers). The brief flash James showed in the fourth quarter was the exception, not the rule. He was 0-3 from the field after those two dunks, went 1-4 from the line and was reduced to a spectator as Curry blew past his team’s entire defense for the Warriors’ final field goals. Whether from fatigue, frustration or general disengagement from his team, James looked like he was out of answers. The Warriors made James look human — Rush’s poke-away steal, Iguodala’s strip on alay-up, Green’s masterful block that was so perfectly timed that the refs (wrongly) assumed it must have been a foul — and being a mere mortal doesn’t seem to sit well with the King. James was gracious in defeat — personallycongratulating all the Warriors after the final buzzer — but he’s clearly frustrated. If the road to an NBA championship goes through Oakland, the Cavs still don’t have a map to victory.
While doubt loomed over the Cavs in defeat, confidence surged through the Warriors in victory. Neither Curry nor Thompson had great nights (6-15 and 6-16 respectively), but they fought through the Cavs’ bruising defense to deliver big baskets when needed. And even without Harrison Barnes and Leandro Barbosa — both of whom had some big moments against the Cavs in the Finals — the Warriors found enough offense to get the team through the stretches when Curry and Thompson were on the bench or ineffective. The stretch at the beginning of the fourth quarter proved particularly scary, as the Cavs came within 3 points of the lead. But Livingston hit the Warriors’ first three baskets of the quarter to protect their margin, capping a near-perfect night from the field (8-9). He looked utterly calm stepping up and delivering when the Warriors needed someone to be assertive. Still, in the end, this was Draymond’s game. On offense (22 points, 8-17 from the field, 2-3 from three, 7 assists), on defense (14 defensive rebounds, 2 blocks, countless shots made more difficult), and on chest-pounding swagger, there was no better player on the court. There have been so many joys in watching the emergence of the Warriors as a historically dominantteam, but the development of Green’s multidimensional, unabashed greatness is at the very top of the list.
Last summer, Green was asked aboutall the “what ifs” surrounding the Warriors’ title. He responded, with a certain lyrical flare, “If ifs were fifths, we’d all be drunk right now.” On a night whenGreen blew past or snuffed out so many of the “what ifs” hanging over the Warriors’ championship, he again provided a perfect summation of the Warriors’ mood. With 8 seconds left in the game, the camera focused on Green standing at the foulline, getting ready for his second free throw. He caught the ball and stared intently at the basket — then broke into a broad, unrestrainedsmile and hit the shot.
The post The End of “What If” (Warriors 89, Cavs 83) appeared first on Fast Break.


Comments made by a Whanganui man who is organising a picket outside Whanganui District Council in opposition to the city becoming a refugee resettlement location have been labelled "vile and disgusting" by another who plans to counter protest.
Last week Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway announced Whanganui will become one of five new refugee re-settlement locations around New Zealand.
"There are already not enough houses and jobs for local people in Whanganui," long time protester Phillip "Bear" Rewiti said.
"The council meeting is at noon tomorrow (the meeting is at 1pm) and we'll be outside from 11am making a peaceful protest."
Reweti, who ran for council in 2016, said he believed some refugees would come from "Osama bin Laden countries".
Ross Fallen, another former council candidate, said Rewiti's comments were "vile and disgusting".
"I have contacted Phillip and pointed out that he promotes himself as a 'professional protester' and should be showing some social responsibility," Fallen said.
"I'm a pacifist so I won't be doing anything aggressive but I will be there with my own sign."
Multicultural Council of Rangitikei/Whanganui president Vijeshwar Prasad said it was sad that some people had such negative attitudes towards other cultures.
"Many of these people come to New Zealand with particular talents that are needed here," he said.
"There are doctors working at Whanganui Hospital who came here as refugees and now they are saving lives."
When asked why the protest was being held outside the council offices when the resettlement was a central government decision, Reweti said the council had not opposed the decision.
Prasad said problems with refugees living in New Zealand only tend to arise if they are left in isolation.
"The multicultural council work to help people understand and respect each others' cultures - we take people on visits to Putiki Marae and introduce them to all the good things in Whanganui."
March is New Zealand Race Relations Month and Prasad said there would be a number of opportunities in Whanganui for people to attend events to learn more about other cultures.
"Often it is simply a matter of sitting down and talking with each other to dispel misunderstandings."
Lees-Galloway told the Chronicle refugees would start to be introduced to Whanganui in March 2020 and would scale up to three to five families every six to eight weeks amounting to around 110 refugees each year.
"We've been settling refugees in New Zealand for generations," he said.
"We have the experience, the resources and the expertise to do our bit and provide a small number of people, displaced by war and disaster, a place to call home without disadvantaging people already living in Whanganui.
"While the primary reason for accepting refugees is humanitarian, research shows there are economic and social benefits for accepting refugees – they contribute to our tax base over time, bring valuable skills and are often budding entrepreneurs."


The Bermuda Centre for Creative Learning has held an event to celebrate the community members who helped bring their new school premises to life.
The BCCL converted an office into a learning environment for pupils with language-based learning difficulties at Cedar House on Hamilton’s Cedar Avenue. The group held a donor appreciation day to recognise people who contributed time and resources to make the project happen.
Cindy Corday, BCCL’s cofounder, said: “We appreciate the support of all of the community members who helped make this happen.
Pupils helped create a wall of thanks and attendees were given a tour of the new school and got the chance to take part in lessons.
Lindsey Sirju, the BCCL’s cofounder, said: “It’s great for people to be able to experience parts of the responsive classroom model that we practise at school.
The Bermuda Centre for Creative Learning Foundation is raising money to improve the school, pay for teachers and provide bursaries for pupils.


“RIGHT now, your individual behaviour does matter,” says Chris Jones. “Anyone can go carbon-neutral today. Better yet, you’ll probably end up with more money in your pocket when you’re done.” Jones’s group, the CoolClimate Network at the University of California, Berkeley, provides an online carbon footprint calculator. It estimates greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, housing, food, goods and services for any household in the US. Other groups provide similar calculators for many other countries. Despite individual and local differences, some broad generalities emerge. “Globally, the three main contributors to greenhouse gas footprints are cars, coal and cows,” says Jones. And those three things are where individual choices can make the biggest difference.


KUWAIT CITY, March 10: The Kuwaiti Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Al-Jarallah was recently quoted as saying he hopes the proposed US-GCC summit which is expected to be held next spring will see the end of the Gulf crisis, according to gulf-times.com. The ‘times’ attributing its reports to the Kuwait News Agency, quoted Al-Jarallah as saying although invitations have yet to be sent to the participants in the summit, the US has been trying to host Gulf leaders to resolve the dispute.
“However, several prominent Gulf figures would be shortly visiting the US, amid moves which could pave the way for the convening of the summit,” Al-Jarallah was quoted as saying.
The Kuwaiti official expressed hope the summit will be held and the Gulf dispute will be solved. He went on to say, “The region is facing dangerous challenges, and we will not be able to face these challenges individually.” Qatar’s foreign minister has said his country is willing to participate in the US-GCC summit provided the countries involved in the dispute provided they show real will to do so and not coercion.
Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, earlier this month, Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said any solution to the dispute between the GCC countries must be based on the principles of equality between the nations of the region. Al-Jarallah recalled the successful efforts of HH the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al- Sabah to prevent the dispute running out of control. He said the efforts exerted by HH the Amir were based on his commitment to preserve the bloc’s unity.
“The Amir of Kuwait moved quickly to resolve the Gulf dispute and he succeeded in calming the atmosphere,” the Kuwaiti official said. Referring to the lack of progress in the peace efforts, the Kuwaiti deputy foreign minister said HH the Amir has not despaired over the impasse “to close the page of this dispute.” He noted the great role of the Kuwaiti Amir in fostering the GCC, saying the brothers in member countries were aware of the role played by him.


More than 100 Ukrainian schoolchildren will have unusual tales to tell their mates when classes resume, after spending part of their summer vacations undergoing training by the National Guard.
The training at a National Guard camp about 75 kilometers (45 miles) from Kiev taught children aged 11-15 rudimentary military skills and gave them a taste of army life in courses over three days. At night the children were quartered in army tents; by day they got instruction in marksmanship, hand-to-hand fighting, weapons maintenance, first aid, map reading and orienteering.
For 11-year-old Oleksander Olinichenko, whose mother and father are both in the Ukrainian army, the camp was a chance to pursue his interest in all things military, as well as show his patriotism.
"''I like everything here, they teach me to take apart and to assemble the assault rifle, they teach us hand-to-hand fighting, first aid - it's very interesting," said Oleksander, his face disguised by military goggles and a regulation helmet.
Some children are from military families in Kiev, others are refugees who relocated to the Ukrainian capital, having left their homes in eastern Ukraine when fighting broke out in 2014. Some of the children chosen to attend the camp come from low-income families, according to the National Guard press office.
National Guardsman Oleksander Honcharenko gave the children instruction in hand-to-hand fighting and karate. He told The Associated Press he and all the other instructors at the camp had served in the Ukrainian army during the conflict in East Ukraine.
"I think every person has to be able to defend himself and his relatives, his nearest and dearest, his family and property. The most important thing is to be able to react quickly in an extreme situation and to make the right decision. The kind of the hand-to-hand fighting that we teach helps them develop such abilities," said Honcharenko, who is vice president of the Ukrainian Karate Association.
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko recently vowed to increase troop numbers to fend off attacks by Russia-backed separatist rebels and warned his countrymen that there is still the threat of a "large-scale invasion." He claimed that Russia had massed about 50,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, still had 9,000 soldiers in eastern Ukraine and had supplied the rebels with about 500 tanks and 400 pieces of artillery.


The controversy over the Scottish Government’s “dear bigots” campaign was to be expected. Indeed, it was almost certainly designed to be controversial.
Some Christian groups complained, saying posters had “singled out religious believers”.
The Scottish Government stressed that it was “absolutely not intended to target those of faith” and apologised if it “appeared to some” that it had.
It seems pretty clear that anyone, religious or not, who truly subscribes to the philosophy of Christ – and therefore embraces ideas such as “love your enemies”, “love your neighbour” and turning the other cheek – cannot also be a bigot.
Christian leaders and the Scottish Government are on the same side – that of the non-bigots – and this current dispute should not be allowed to overshadow this as we try to rid Scotland of its sectarian shame.


On Tuesday, The New York Times published a report revealing that more than 1 billion username and password combinations had been stolen by a Russian cyber gang currently being called CyberVor.
The report was based on recent findings from security firm Hold Security, and the Times described the breach as "the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials."
Newer reports, however, are skeptical of these claims. There are numerous details that Hold Security has not disclosed, such as whether or not the stolen data was encrypted (disguised as random characters for privacy purposes), which companies and websites had been affected by the attack, and which countries the information had been stolen from.
What's more, Hold is charging a $120 subscription to their services in order to see whether or not you've been affected by the attack, as Forbes pointed out.
Joe Siegrist, CEO of password management platform LastPass, said that this could make Hold Security's findings seem suspicious. The fact that the firm is charging users a fee to see if their data has been compromised could be a red flag, but it's difficult to be sure without more information.
"It's just not how most people with breaches would react," he told Business Insider. "If you have this kind of data you want to help people and not kind of capitalize on them. It's definitely a little suspicious."
The timing is also coincidental, Siegrist said. Hacking experts and security researchers are currently gathered at the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas. Another security conference called Def Con kicks off tomorrow too. It could be a ploy to generate buzz at a time when cyber security is already in the news.
"If he really does have all these leaks, he should be letting other security researchers look at it to help quantify what it is," Siergist said.
There's one detail, however, that may make the attack seem more massive than it might have been. CyberVor is believed to have obtained these stolen credentials over an extended period of time. As Hold Security writes in its explanation of the situation, which The Verge observed, the hacking ring gained data from other cyber criminals on the black market before spreading its own attacks.
This means the CyberVors could have purchased some of those 1.2 billion credentials from other hackers —so the collection of credentials may not have entirely been the result of their attack.
Thus, it may not make make sense to directly compare this situation with the recent Target breach, in which hackers from Easter Europe stole 40 million credit card numbers, as the Times does in its story.
The gang is believed to have amassed more than 1.2 billion unique password and username combinations and more than 500,000 email addresses.
The hacking ring is said to have robbed 420,000 websites to obtain this information.
The hackers have targeted both small personal websites and large companies, but Hold wouldn't disclose the names of any victims.
According to The New York Times, some big companies are aware that their records have been stolen.
The hackers are using botnets to obtain this information. Botnets allow hackers to affect thousands and thousands of computers with infected software that allows them to remotely control the victimized computer.
We've reached out to Hold Security to answer some of these questions. We'll update this article accordingly when we hear back.


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Freddie Mac , the government-owned mortgage finance company, on Wednesday said it is considering legal action against Richmond, California, if the city uses eminent domain to seize mortgages of local residents who owe more than their properties are worth in a bid to keep them in their homes.
"Our sense is that those so-called voluntarily loan sales would not be very voluntary," said Freddie Mac's general counsel William McDavid in a conference call with reporters to discuss the company's second-quarter financial results. "They're loan sales under pressure - in fact, under a threat of seizure by eminent domain. We would consider taking legal action."
Freddie Mac and its larger sister company, Fannie Mae, are some of the biggest buyers of private home-loan bonds. The two government-backed companies' finances would be affected if the eminent domain plan went forward and wiped out the worth of those bond investments.
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are investors in these securities. This is an issue that we are discussing," said Denise Dunckel, a spokeswoman for the companies' regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Both companies, operating under conservatorship since they were taken over by the government in 2008 during the financial crisis, would need the Federal Housing Finance Agency's permission to take legal action against the city of Richmond and possibly block the eminent domain seizures. The FHFA itself has previously raised concerns with an approach like Richmond's.
Using eminent domain in this fashion to force banks and other investors to sell mortgages is novel. Historically cities have used the power to force the sale of properties if they obstruct the construction of a project deemed beneficial to the wider community, such as a road or bridge.
Richmond is working with San Francisco-based Mortgage Resolution Partners, a private investment firm that has been pitching the plan to U.S. cities and municipalities for more than a year. MRP, raising money from private sources, would work with the city to obtain the financing to buy the distressed mortgages and restructure them. MRP would receive a fee for every troubled loan it restructured under the plan.