Hillary Clinton's historic moment finally arrived on Tuesday night, accompanied by an intensely personal speech from her husband Bill, that sought to recast her image as a symbol of the political establishment. "She's the best darn change-maker I ever met in my life," insisted the former president, recalling decades of Hillary Clinton's work as a social radical. "This woman has never been satisfied with the status quo in anything." On a night when she became the first woman to be nominated by a major party to run for the White House, Hillary Clinton fully embraced the historic significance of the occasion. She joined the party by live satellite link from New York to the accompanying sound of breaking glass, disrupting a black and white montage of the 44 male presidents of the United States who have gone before her. "I can't believe we just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet," said Clinton. "If there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch, can I just say, I may become the first woman president but one of you is next." Amid a growing populist challenge from Republican Donald Trump and scenes of revolt from some Bernie Sanders supporters, her husband's powerfully persuasive speech may go some way to restoring momentum to the campaign. "Hillary will make us stronger together," he said. "You know it, because she spent a lifetime doing it. I hope you will do it. I hope you will elect her. Those of us who have more yesterdays than tomorrows tend to think more about our children and grandchildren." The speech capped a pivotal day for the party, as it sought to move on from scenes of division, and capitalise on Clinton's symbolic breakthrough. She will address the crowd directly on Thursday in a formal acceptance of the nomination but for now, speeches first from Michelle Obama and now from Bill Clinton have done the most to counter a much darker vision of America presented by Republican candidate Donald Trump. "If she wins she's coming back for you to take you along on the ride for America's future," said former president Clinton as he recalled campaigning with coalminers in West Virginia and urged to the party to do more to create more new jobs in the US economy. It was almost the only overtly political message of his own. In contrast with past speeches, where the former president has risked overshadowing the campaign, this one sounded more like the personal speeches made by the wives of male candidates. In an azure blue tie that picked out the colours of the arena, and with his hands shaking slightly, Clinton delivered a highly personal account of their courtship and marriage that seemed at times to be an attempt to make America fall in love with the girl he first met in the spring of 1971. Skipping over the awkward moments in a very public, and at times visibly flawed, marriage, Clinton instead said: "I married my best friend," recalling two failed proposal attempts and then describing when Clinton's water broke during her pregnancy with Chelsea – undoubtedly a first in a speech about a US presidential candidate. "The first time I saw her was in a class on political and civil rights … [she had] big blond hair, big glasses, wore no makeup and exuded a sense that I found magnetic," said a clearly infatuated and somewhat awed Clinton. "I knew I might be starting something I couldn't stop." After spending nearly an hour describing her political and personal accomplishments he turned only briefly to her opponent. And he issued a direct challenge to the two-dimensional "cartoon" image of his wife which had been painted by her political foes. "How does this square with what you heard at the Republican convention? One is real, the other is made up," said Bill. "You just have to decide which is which my fellow Americans … Good for you, because earlier today you nominated the real one." The well-received speech, seeking to rewrite the accepted wisdom about her candidacy, may help galvanise the campaign in much the same way Bill Clinton helped revive Barack Obama's listless 2012 effort. But the space was created by another reconcilation between competing Democrats earlier in the evening. Bernie Sanders left the arena with his head held high on Tuesday. In contrast to the chaotic scenes of protest from his supporters that marred attempts at unity on day one, the room largely came together for the historic night, with few boos at all. The healing was helped by fresh opportunities for the Sanders campaign to celebrate its success and vow to continue its fight for more radical social reform. "Because this is a movement fuelled by love it can never be stopped or defeated," said Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as she formally proposed Sanders for the nomination. Shortly before calling for a suspension of the rules to move directly to the nomination of his former rival, Sanders appeared emotional as he listened to his tearful brother Larry announce delegates from the Democrats Abroad primary. The pageant of democracy hid some controversy too. A small group of Sanders supporters staged a sit-in of the media centre, largely in protest at the party's use of superdelegates to bolster Clinton's margin of victory in states where Sanders won the most votes. Clinton was at home watching events from her New York state home in Chappaqua, but her daughter Chelsea was on hand in a venue packed with rising female stars from the Democratic party and wider US society. Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, herself a noted breaker of glass ceilings, received one of the warmest welcomes of the evening for a commanding speech that listed Clinton's foreign affairs experience. Trump, she claimed, "has already done damage just by running for president". Oscar winner Meryl Streep signed off the night by asking: "What does it take to be the first female anything? It takes grit and it takes grace." Placing Clinton in a lineage of great American women from Rosa Parks and Amelia Earhart to Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt, she told the delegates: "You people have made history and you're gonna make history again in November because Hillary Clinton will be our first woman president … she'll be the first but she won't be the last." Lena Dunham, creator and star of the HBO series Girls, led a series of celebrity endorsements that joined the dots between Clinton's breaking of glass ceilings and Trump's dismissive comments about women. "According to Donald Trump, my body is probably like, a two," she began. "His rhetoric about women takes us back to a time when we were meant to be beautiful and silent." "Donald Trump is not making America great again; he is making America hate again," added fellow actor America Ferrera, from the TV series Ugly Betty. California senator Barbara Boxer emerged on stage to the soundtrack from Rocky, Philadelphia's de facto theme tune. "Are you ready to elect the very first woman president of these United States of America?" "Yes!" came a reply that sounded less hesitant than usual, as confidence among Democrats grows. Some of the most powerful political messaging came via prepared video footage that interspersed live speakers with clips of Trump: exposing his lack of respect for women, or damning him with his own words as he described pregnancy as an irritant for employers. There were also the first hints of the national security issues, which are likely to be a big feature of the latter part of week. Republicans watching on television have criticised the Philadelphia convention for ignoring pressing safety issues, in a stadium devoid of the usual flags that tend to dominate US political sets. Survivors of the 9/11 attack on New York paid moving testimony to the support they received from Clinton as a local senator. "When New York needed her, she was there," said Lauren Manning, a burns victim whose emotional speech provided some of the most powerful character testimony yet. Others tried a lighter tack in the campaign's conscious effort to try to humanise a candidate still regarded as aloof and chilly by some Americans. Kentucky secretary of state Alison Lundergan Grimes began the night recalling that the soon-to-be nominee loves lifestyle TV "and can devour buffalo wings". Barbara Mikulski said Clinton would fight for "macaroni and cheese" issues, boasting again of her taste for down-to-earth food. There were echoes of a similar attempt to add colour to the larger-than-life media image of Trump at last week's Republican convention, as both campaigns grapple with the historically low favourability ratings of both candidates. But while Trump was pictured as a ruthless winner by his business associates, Clinton surrogates queued up to claim she was a people person – the opposite of the public stereotype.


The Libyan capital s Mitiga airport was evacuated on Tuesday and civilian flights were repeatedly suspended as rival armed groups clashed nearby, officials said. Flights had restarted around midday on Tuesday after being suspended for several hours during the morning and the previous evening, Mitiga spokesman Khaled Abukhrais said. But by late afternoon heavy gunfire resumed and the airport was shut. Unfortunately the air space has closed again and the airport has been evacuated for the safety and security of passengers and workers, due to renewed clashes, an airport statement said. Mitiga is a military air base near the center of Tripoli that has also hosted civilian flights since the international airport was largely destroyed by fighting in 2014. The clashes began when the Special Deterrence Force (Rada), a group that controls Mitiga and operates as an anti-crime unit aligned with the U.N.-backed government, conducted raids in the nearby neighborhood of Ghrarat. Rada spokesman Ahmed Bin Salem said the group targeted in the raids had tried to attack the airport area after a wanted drug dealer had been killed when he fired on a Rada patrol. The area of Ghrarat is now under the control of our forces and it s being treated as military zone so we can clear any resistance, Bin Salem said. One member of Rada had been killed and two wounded, and there were several casualties among their opponents, he said. Tripoli is split among various armed groups that have built local power bases since Libya s 2011 revolution. There have been fewer heavy confrontations in the capital since groups linked to a previous, self-declared government were pushed out of the city earlier this year, but armed skirmishes, kidnapping and other criminal activity are still common.


A declassified report by U.S. intelligence agencies said Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an effort to help Donald Trump's electoral chances by discrediting Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign. The following quotes are some highlights of the report, which was drafted by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency, and released on Friday: - "Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations." - "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments." - "We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence." - "Moscow's approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia's understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency." - "We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election." - "Further information has come to light since Election Day that, when combined with Russian behavior since early November 2016, increases our confidence in our assessments of Russian motivations and goals." - "Moscow's influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations — such as cyber activity — with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or 'trolls'." - "Russia's intelligence services conducted cyber operations against targets associated with the 2016 US presidential election, including targets associated with both major U.S. political parties." - "We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release U.S. victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks." - "We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks. Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries." - "Russia collected on some Republican-affiliated targets but did not conduct a comparable disclosure campaign." - "Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple U.S. state or local electoral boards. DHS (Department of Homeland Security) assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying." - "We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the U.S. presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against U.S. allies and their election processes." - "Immediately after Election Day, we assess Russian intelligence began a spearphishing campaign targeting U.S. Government employees and individuals associated with U.S. think tanks and NGOs in national security, defense, and foreign policy fields. This campaign could provide material for future influence efforts as well as foreign intelligence collection on the incoming administration's goals and plans."


A fistfight broke out among several passengers on a Southwest Airlines flight from Dallas to Burbank on Sunday as it was taxiing to the gate at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, the Los Angeles Times reported. [FIGHT OR FLIGHT: Vicious brawl breaks out aboard Southwest Airlines airplane in Burbank https: . pic. twitter. — ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) May 10, 2017, Video of the altercation shows two men wrestling and throwing punches at each other as a woman yells, "What is wrong with you? Get off!" while she tries to break up the fight. A flight attendant tried to intervene, but the two men fell on top of her as they rolled onto the seat where she was sitting. One continued to throw punches until other passengers stepped in to break up the fight. Police arrested the suspect, Chaze Mickalo Cable, 37, of Lancaster, for misdemeanor assault and battery, KABC reported. Cable is being held on $50, 000 bail. The victim suffered a chipped tooth, a contusion to his left eye, and a cut on his nose, police said. CBS Los Angeles reported that the victim refused treatment and continued to his next destination. Whether the two knew each other before the fight and what caused it are unknown. Southwest Airlines said Flight 2530 arrived from Dallas and was making a scheduled layover in Burbank before it continued to its final destination in Oakland, adding that the fight involved three passengers as they were getting ready to deplane. "We're grateful to our employees who quickly reacted to break up a fight involving three customers," a Southwest Airlines spokeswoman said. "Our Employees are our everyday heroes and are trained to conflict while delivering heartfelt hospitality. " Another brawl broke out Monday night at Fort Lauderdale International Airport after Spirit Airlines canceled nine flights due to a staff shortage caused by an issue with the airline pilots' union.


The Senate passed the first broad energy bill in nine years on Wednesday, legislation containing modest measures popular with both Republicans and Democrats to modernize the power grid and speed the permitting process for liquefied natural gas exports. The bill, which passed 85-12, attempts to protect the power grid from extreme weather events such as ice storms and hurricanes, and from cyber attacks. It also aims to spur innovations in storage of power from wind and solar energy. The House of Representatives passed a similar bill last year. The Energy Policy and Modernization Act would increase U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), eventually helping to give European consumers alternatives to relying mainly on Russia for gas. After disagreements held the bill up for months, senators last week dropped measures from the bill to aid Flint, Michigan overcome a drinking water crisis, in which children have been exposed to dangerous levels of lead, and on offshore drilling. Lawmakers from both the House and Senate will next iron out differences over the bill. The Senate bill, for instance, requires the Department of Energy to issue a decision on LNG projects within 45 days of an environmental assessment, while the House bill directs the DOE to make the decision on permits after 30 days. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state who co-sponsored the bill, said shortly before it passed that she hoped the chambers would move quickly "so that we can realize the opportunity to help our businesses and consumers plan for the energy future." The White House has signaled that President Barack Obama would sign the Senate bill. Energy policy analyst Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners said the chances the bill would be signed into law this year were about 65 percent, because the White House has had some differences with the House bill. Charlie Riedl, the head of industry group the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, said the vote was a "big step forward" and that certainty about the regulatory process is "crucial" for projects that cost billions of dollars to build. Rob Cowin, director of government affairs at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group, said the bill falls "far short" of what is needed to promote wind and solar power, but is "better than doing nothing." The Senate on Tuesday passed several amendments to the bill, including restricting most sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when oil prices are low.


The most arresting vista in town comes into view around a curve on westbound Freedom Parkway, on the periphery of downtown. The road crests just before it intersects Boulevard, at a traffic light that always seems to glow red, as if to allow motorists a minute to savor the panorama before them. The striking thing is not the majesty of the skyline but its accessibility — here I am, the city beckons, come and gawk. For from that vantage point, Atlanta just is: a mecca, the cradle of the civil rights movement, a magnet for transplants, a college football locus, the shimmering capital of the South, and more. All of which are accurate but still do not capture the city's nuances. "I don't think people understand Atlanta," Doug Hertz said. Aside from his schooling at Tulane, in New Orleans, Hertz, 64, has lived here his entire life, which makes him a rarity. The city teems with people who moved here for work, school, family, or just to live nearer to the spinach and sausage meatloaf at Murphy's. They have contributed to a booming growth — the metropolitan area's diverse population has swelled to more than 5. 7 million, an increase of more than 1. 46 million since 2000 — that over the past few decades has also shaped Atlanta's layered relationship with its sports teams. Hertz is a limited partner of the Falcons, who on Sunday will play the New England Patriots in the team's second Super Bowl appearance since its inception in 1966. They last reached the championship game in the 1998 season, losing to the Denver Broncos, when I was a freshman at Emory University here and, more to the point, was one of those people Hertz was talking about, struggling to understand Atlanta. That September, I joined surprising brigades of Philadelphia Eagles fans invading the Georgia Dome for the Falcons' home opener. Not even three weeks later, a group of us arrived at Turner Field, maybe two hours before Game 1 of the Atlanta Braves' baseball playoff series against the Chicago Cubs, and still managed to buy tickets. Six of them. In the same row. My frame of reference was Philadelphia, whose zealous fans in analogous circumstances would never accept such apathy. Season after season, the Braves won their division, destroying the Phillies, and this is how their fans responded? "Are we as rabid and overtly like Boston or New York? No, we could be better," Gavin Godfrey, a native Atlanta journalist who chronicles culture and sports said over lunch in Castleberry Hill, a historic arts district by the Georgia Dome. "But that doesn't mean we don't care, and not every town has to be held to that standard. Not every city's built the same. " In the Northeast, for instance, with a deep and abiding sports culture that spans generations, and in some cases centuries, there is less competition for sports fans' loyalty. The emotional connection with college football, for instance, is not as strong as it is with some professional sports. For years, the opposite has been — and to a degree, still is — true of Atlanta, where on autumn Saturdays fans pack bars and living rooms, or flee for Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, South Carolina, Tennessee, all within a drive. "Most of us, that D. N. A. is not there for professional sports franchises," Hertz said. The Falcons have built a base of loyalists — the City Council president, Ceasar Mitchell, said he drove down to Miami for the Falcons' last Super Bowl appearance despite not having a ticket — but so struggled to pack the Dome that home games were not shown on local television because of the N. F. L. 's old blackout rule. The team's middling history has also failed to entice the local residents and persuade the newcomers to come out. The arrival of the quarterback Michael Vick, in 2001, mirrored the city's spirit at the time — ascending, vibrant and forward — and his downfall, for his involvement in an interstate dogfighting ring, created tension, on a racial and cultural level, that lingered for years. Vick's successor, Matt Ryan, is his antithesis in nearly every possible way — be it race, playing style, pedigree or personality. "Some of our fans will always be proud that an quarterback succeeded," Hertz said. "What I think has happened over a period of time is a growing appreciation and acceptance in Matt Ryan, and that his style is every bit as spectacular on and off the field. " The city's evolution, coupled with an effort by the owner of the Falcons, Arthur Blank, to promote a sense of community around the team, has strengthened its bond with the Falcons. Since 2012, when the Falcons lost in the conference championship game, the Georgia Dome, which seats 71, 250, has achieved at least 98 percent of its capacity every year. This season's mark of 98. 2 percent, 15th among the 32 teams and the lowest since 2011, bested that of, among others, the venues for the Giants, Jets, Chiefs and Patriots. As the Braves bolt northwest for a new stadium in Cobb County, a move that has left many fans feeling betrayed, the Falcons remain moored to Atlanta. Next season they move into a new home, Stadium. "There's something about the nature of fans here that makes them take pride," said Molly Slavin, 29, who moved here in 2012 from Illinois. "Although it might not be in a way that translates to sports fandom as seen in other cities. " Ryan Cameron, 47, an Atlanta radio personality and a holder since 1998, explained that phenomenon like this: "There are people who will fight you about these Falcons," he said. "But we're not trying to prove to you that we're so crazy. For us, it's just being loud. We don't have to brag. It's Southern charm. " Still, Atlanta's gentility, a core virtue, would give way to utter delirium on Sunday — and for weeks and months thereafter — if the Falcons were to win. This city has been teased before, by those Braves behemoths of the '90s, by the Falcons in 1998, even by the Hawks, who went two seasons ago before losing in the conference finals. Counting the futility of its two departed N. H. L. franchises, the Flames and Thrashers, Atlanta can claim only one championship — Braves, 1995 — across a combined 167 completed seasons. Pellom McDaniels, who played the final two of his eight N. F. L. seasons with the Falcons, suggested that a victory would register a psychological impact — an acknowledgment of the city's trajectory, from aspirational to and mature. During the 1996 Olympics, and in the years that followed, Atlanta seemed eager to convince others that it was cosmopolitan, sophisticated, worth exploring. Even as it grapples with its identity now, reckoning with gentrification and redevelopment forces that are at once eroding and improving neighborhoods, Atlanta projects a different image — of comfort and confidence in its direction, whatever that is. "It would be almost like a beacon," said McDaniels, now the curator of collections at Emory, said of a potential title. "That we're working together as a community, and the success the Falcons have experienced is our success — that we're doing something right. " The term Mitchell used was runway, a point of departure for a nascent sports city that has added a Major League Soccer franchise set to begin play next season. The Falcons are thriving, interest is soaring, and from Mitchell's perspective, he sure likes the view.


One can only imagine what kind of relationship Hillary has with her very close top aide s soon to be ex-husband Fox News Sunday reported this morning that Anthony Weiner is cooperating with the FBI, which has re-opened (yes, lefties: re-opened ) the investigation into Hillary Clinton s classified emails. Watch as Chris Wallace reports the breaking news during the panel segment near the end of the show:https://youtu.be/x13hBwS9q2cAnd the news is breaking while we re on the air. Our colleague Bret Baier has just sent us an e-mail saying he has two sources who say that Anthony Weiner, who also had co-ownership of that laptop with his estranged wife Huma Abedin, is cooperating with the FBI investigation, had given them the laptop, so therefore they didn t need a warrant to get in to see the contents of said laptop. Pretty interesting development. Targets of federal investigations will often cooperate, hoping that they will get consideration from a judge at sentencing. Given Weiner s well-known penchant for lying, it s hard to believe that a prosecutor would give Weiner a deal based on an agreement to testify, unless his testimony were very strongly corroborated by hard evidence. But cooperation can take many forms and, as Wallace indicated on this morning s show, one of those forms could be signing a consent form to allow investigators to review the contents of devices that they could probably get a warrant for anyway. We ll see if Weiner s cooperation extends beyond that.


Next stop after BREXIT is the US! Judge Jeanine nails it and says we need to know the facts to fight this elitist agenda. We re tired of being lectured to by the fat cats in Washington .


Steve Hayes says the biggest scandal yet for Obama is possibly the downplaying of the progress of ISIS in the middle east. Basically, ISIS intel was cooked to make Obama look good crazy!


Actress Amber Heard is donating $350,000 to the ACLU just as the historic civil rights organization is gearing up to go toe-to-toe with the incoming Donald Trump administration.Heard s money is coming from her settlement as a result of her divorce from actor Johnny Depp, in which domestic violence allegations were made.From TMZ:We ve now received an email from the ACLU, in which an ACLU rep acknowledged Amber made a $350k payment on August 19th. A source connected with Amber tells TMZ, she advanced the money, relying on Johnny paying her the settlement. We re told she took steps to send Children s Hospital money but didn t send it because she and Johnny began squabbling over the settlement deal.As we reported, Amber s lawyer, Pierce O Donnell, says he s confident the settlement will be signed this week.During the campaign, the ACLU described Trump as a one-man Constitutional crisis, and warned that his statements and policy proposals would blatantly violate the inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The ACLU was one of the first organizations out with a strong statement against Trump after he won the 2016 election:President-elect Trump, as you assume the nation s highest office, we urge you to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made. These include your plan to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants; ban the entry of Muslims into our country and aggressively surveil them; punish women for accessing abortion; reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture; and change our nation s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression.These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed, they are unlawful and unconstitutional. They violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers, and millions of card-carrying supporters are ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights.One thing is certain: we will be eternally vigilant every single day of your presidency and when you leave the Oval Office, we will do the same with your successor.Ms. Heard s money, along with thousands of others, will help the ACLU keep their promise. Trump will have a persistent thorn in his side.


Marc Riboud, the celebrated French photojournalist who captured moments of grace even in the most fraught situations around the world, died in Paris on Tuesday. He was 93. The cause was Alzheimer's disease, his wife, Catherine Chaine, said. Mr. Riboud's career of more than 60 years carried him routinely to turbulent places throughout Asia and Africa in the 1950s and '60s, but he may be best remembered for two photographs taken in the developed world. The first, from 1953, is of a workman poised like an angel in overalls between a lattice of girders while painting the Eiffel Tower — one hand raising a paintbrush, one leg bent in a seemingly Chaplinesque attitude. The second, from 1967, is of a young woman presenting a flower to a phalanx of members of the National Guard during an War demonstration at the Pentagon. Both images were published in Life magazine during what is often called the golden age of photojournalism, an era Mr. Riboud (pronounced ) exemplified. A protégé of Henri he was on the front lines of world events, including wars. Even so, Mr. Riboud did not consider himself a record keeper. "I have shot very rarely news," he once said. Rather than portray the military parades or political leaders of the Soviet Union, for example, he was drawn to anonymous citizens sitting in the snow, holding miniature chess boards and absorbed in their books. Of the many hundreds of shots he published from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Pakistan, Tibet and Turkey, only a handful are of figures written about by historians. Born on June 24, 1923, in St. near Lyon, he was the fifth and, by his account, the most shy of seven children from a bourgeois family that expected him to take up a respectable vocation. It was his father, an enthusiastic traveler and amateur photographer, who led him astray by giving him a Kodak when Marc was a teenager. His first photographs were of the Paris Exposition in 1937. After World War II, in which he fought around Vercors as a member of the Resistance, Mr. Riboud studied mechanical engineering at the École Centrale in Lyon. He took a factory job in the nearby town of Villeurbanne after graduating in 1948. Not until he found himself taking pictures of a cultural festival in Lyon during a weeklong vacation in 1951 did he at last decide to commit to the unstable life of a freelance photojournalist. He moved to Paris in 1952. There he met who became his mentor. Already a celebrity in his field, this "salutary tyrant," as Mr. Riboud called him, dictated "which books to read, what political ideas I should have, which museums and galleries to visit. " "He taught me about life and about the art of photography," Mr. Riboud said. Among the lessons imparted was that "good photography" is dependent on "good geometry. " The Eiffel Tower photograph from 1953, the first that Mr. Riboud published, proves how well the pupil absorbed the lesson. In a radio interview more than 50 years later, he still recalled the caption given to the image by the Life copy writers: " on the Eiffel. " In 1953, nominated his protégé to join Magnum, the photo collective he had helped found. Until 1979, when he left to go out on his own, Mr. Riboud traveled and photographed for the agency constantly. In 1955, he drove a specially equipped Land Rover to Calcutta from Paris, staying for a year in India. He was also one of the first Westerners to photograph in Communist China, and he spent three months in the Soviet Union in 1960. Throughout the 1950s and '60s he documented the anticolonial independence movements in Algeria and West Africa, and during the Vietnam War he was among the few able to move easily between the North and South. In the United States, he documented not only protests against the Vietnam War but also a pensive Maureen Dean listening to her husband, the Nixon aide John W. Dean, testify at the Watergate hearings in 1973. Among the events he documented in recent decades were the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Iran the Solidarity movement in Poland the trial of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief in Lyon during World War II the end of apartheid in South Africa and the mood in the United States before the election of President Obama. During the last third of his life, Mr. Riboud was recognized by museums in many of the countries where he had worked. Photographs from his travels were collected in more than a dozen monographs, including "Marc Riboud: Photographs at Home and Abroad" (1986) "Marc Riboud: Journal" (1988) and "Marc Riboud in China: Forty Years of Photography" (1996). Among many other shows, Mr. Riboud was honored with exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1964, and the International Center of Photography in New York, in 1975, 1988 and 1997. He was the subject of retrospectives at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1985 and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris in 2004. Unlike some artists who resent that the public's infatuation with a few of their works has turned them into clichés, Mr. Riboud did not mind describing the circumstances behind "The Eiffel Tower Painter. " No, he did not ask the workman to pose, he would answer patiently. To have spoken to the man might have caused him to slip. "I've always been shy, and I've always been trying to ignore the people I was photographing so that they ignore me," he said. Of the flower girl at the Pentagon, a high school student named Jan Rose Kasmir, he ventured, "I had the feeling the soldiers were more afraid of her than she was of the bayonets. " (The two later reunited in London, where he photographed her carrying a poster of the 1967 image at a demonstration against the Iraq War in 2003.) The immense popularity of these two photographs, assisted by countless reproductions, could well have warped perceptions of Mr. Riboud's highly diverse body of work. And yet they did truly represent the gravitational bent of his personality. "I have always been more sensitive to the beauty of the world than to violence and monsters," he wrote in an essay in 2000. "My obsession is with photographing life at its most intense as intensely as possible. It's a mania, a virus as strong as my instinct to be free. If taste for life diminishes, the photographs pale, because taking pictures is like savoring life at 125th of a second. " In 1961, he married Barbara Chase, the American sculptor, poet and novelist. The marriage ended in divorce in the 1980s. Besides his second wife, Ms. Chaine, a journalist and author, Mr. Riboud is survived by two sons from his first marriage, David and Alexei and a daughter, Clémence, and a son, Théo, from his second marriage. Mr. Riboud's weakness for sentimental subjects and causes marred his reputation with some critics. But this optimism, coupled with his overt sympathies for the downtrodden and a working style that put an emphasis on freedom of movement, unencumbered by any equipment except a camera and his wits, also served to keep him photographing until the end of his life. Until a few years ago, he would begin each day by loading film into his Canon EOS 300. "My vision of the world is simple," Mr. Riboud said when he was in his 80s. "Tomorrow, each new day, I want to see the city, take new photographs, meet people and wander alone. "


Governor Rick Scott of Florida may be the worst governor in modern history. So, of course he formally endorsed Donald Trump and has been cited as a possible VP choice for the likely Republican presidential nominee. Rather than let Trump take all the glory in racist provocations, insane proposals, and a supporter base which represents the worst things about this country, Governor Rick Scott matches Trump in how low a public official can really go, and may offer a glimpse into what lies in the future for this country if Donald Trump is elected president.The giant, for-profit, hospital chain, Tenet Healthcare, was investigated by journalists in July 2015 amid claims the hospitals were failing miserably in living up to the state of Florida s quality standards for children s heart surgery. A CNN investigation found the mortality rate for these surgeries was more than three times the national average.Instead of improving the quality of care in their hospitals, Tenet Healthcare responded with a $200,000 donation to Florida Republicans, and in kind, Governor Rick Scott got rid of the standards, allowing Tenet Healthcare to continue making thousands of dollars from performing these surgeries while endangering the lives of thousands of children born with heart defects. Of course, Governor Scott and Tenet denied having conversations with one another, despite the coincidence that Governor Scott decided a couple months after the investigation to repeal the standards when he had since the time he took office in 2011 to do so.Florida s Department of Health excused the repeal due to the legislature not having the authority to have enacted them in the first place, regardless the standards have been in place for an uncontested 32 years. Parents and cardiac pediatricians took the state of Florida to court over the state s repealing of the standards, but the Florida judge ruled in favor of the state. The same judge ruled in 2014, a doctor accused of handcuffing and beating a patient over the course of a yearlong sexual relationship can continue to practice medicine. I can t think of anywhere else in the country where you have safety standards and someone doesn t like them, so you just have it repealed, Dr. Peter Pronovost, senior vice president for patient safety and quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine, told CNN in an interview this past January. These standards have been in use for more than 30 years, and they re widely acknowledged to ensure safety why would you repeal them? If the state really felt it didn t have the legislative authority to have the standards, why wouldn t they go out and get that authority? This is exactly the kind of corruption we don t need in government, and in the worst possible industry. Sacrificing the health of your constituency for political donations is as low as it gets.


Maggie Haberman, a New York Times political correspondent, has devoted her journalistic career to two irresistible subjects: politics and New York City. At age 7, her first byline appeared in The Daily News it has now been published in all three New York dailies. A native of the Upper West Side who lives in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, she has covered 10 election cycles, from mayoral contests to presidential campaigns, including the 2016 race, which turns to New York on Tuesday for its primary. Join us for live primary updates. There have been pickles and pizzas, jeering crowds and pushy and dashes out to Coney Island for hot dogs alongside scruffy, bearded rock stars. Campaigns in New York feel at times like a movable feast, with candidates gorging on local specialties as they move along city sidewalks, shaking hands and trying to avoid dripping grease on their shirts. And this presidential race, which once seemed so distant, has taken on a distinctly New York character in the prelude to Tuesday's primary, and not just in its greasy diet. The campaign has captivated New Yorkers, drawing tens of thousands out of their homes from the South Bronx to Staten Island, to take in what this city relishes: a big show. "Do women like Trump?" Donald J. Trump asked two female fans wearing "Make America Great Again" ball caps on Sunday, as he posed for a picture with them on Staten Island. Mr. Trump, who is heavily favored here in Tuesday's primary, was holding one of his few official campaign events in the city. And the two Trump fans, who said they could not reveal their names because it would imperil their jobs, were ready for the occasion. Mr. Trump smiled as he stood for the snapshot with them, quietly murmuring that the giddy women and another man who pushed himself into the photograph needed to pipe down a bit. No matter, they were very happy to have met the leading Republican candidate. "He let us know that he loves us, too," one of the women gushed. Mr. Trump was greeted like a hometown hero on Staten Island. Outside the Hilton Garden Inn, where he was to give a speech, the line to get in snaked for over 50 yards in the parking lot. About 1, 000 people made it inside. Mr. Trump seemed thrilled to be in the borough, if a little fuzzy on its charms. Asked by a reporter to identify his favorite local pizza place, he responded that there are "a lot" of them. He had worked on Staten Island as a youngster for four summers, he told the assembled press corps — although, ever the salesman, he increased it to "probably five" summers by the time he spoke to the Staten Island crowd in the next room. His lowly job? Collecting coins from laundry machines at one of his father's buildings. Watching Mr. Trump take the stage in that ballroom, with people standing on chairs to hear him, was a reminder of why he is doing so well in the Republican primary. The borough is an enclave of voters, police officers and firefighters. And, setting aside his gilded towers and airplane Mr. Trump talks and sounds more like his fans than the city's last Republican mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg. I once watched Mr. Bloomberg draw cringes from a Staten Island crowd when he joked that he was the only politician present not to have a vowel at the end of his name. The battle for Brooklyn between Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is intense, and Mrs. Clinton is counting on her deep support in the borough's neighborhoods to offset Mr. Sanders's popularity among white liberals. At a block party in the section on Sunday, she was praised by Representative James E. Clyburn, a leader who traveled from his home state, South Carolina, for the occasion. There has not been an election in his lifetime, Mr. Clyburn told the crowd of about 200 people waiting in the hot sun, "that's going to be more consequential than this one. " Finally, Mrs. Clinton arrived and climbed the steps up to the bed of a red pickup truck that was being used as a stage. "Hello Brooklyn in the house, and on the street!" Mrs. Clinton called out to the crowd. The former secretary of state is comfortably ahead in the polls here, and she seems to be enjoying hopscotching around the state she represented for eight years in the Senate. But for all the warmhearted reminiscences, Mrs. Clinton has something to fear from Mr. Sanders on Tuesday. Around the time she visited thousands gathered for a rally for Mr. Sanders in Prospect Park, the pristine patch of green wedged between Crown Heights and upscale Park Slope. The actor Danny DeVito led the cheerful crowd in chants of "Bernie! Bernie!" and someone handed out copies of a fake newspaper with a banner headline reading "A Vote for Hillary Clinton Is a Vote for Donald Trump. " The Sanders campaign said the crowd reached 28, 300, a record for its rallies. If you live here and have yet to see a candidate, you still have time. While the Republicans hold events on Monday in Maryland, Western New York and upstate (Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio will visit Schenectady, the city most likely to be misspelled by reporters) the Democrats are around. Mr. Sanders will hold a rally at Hunters Point South Park in Queens on Monday evening, for which doors open at 5 p. m. And Mrs. Clinton will address one of her core constituencies — women — at the New York Hilton Midtown. Doors open at noon.


As Donald Trump heads into the general election against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, he is literally doing everything possible to cause a Republican revolt. As backlash mounts after his racist comments regarding Judge Gonzalo Curiel, GOP lawmakers from Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan have called on the nominee to soften his rhetoric, focus on the issues, and drop the subject.Speaker Ryan referred to Trump s comments as the textbook definition of racism. McConnell called the comments stupid and requested that Trump apologize immediately.And what does Trump do? The exact opposite of everything they recommended.In an interview with the New York Times, Trump blasted fellow Republicans for being to harsh on him: Politicians are so politically correct anymore, they can t breathe. The people are tired of this political correctness when things are said that are totally fine. It is out of control. It is gridlock with their mouths. Trump also said he expects to work well with these same Republicans because he s always gotten what he wanted. And Trump actually thinks Ryan and McConnell s criticisms of his clearly racist sentiments are hurting the party:Mr. Trump, arms crossed tightly across his chest during lunch, was aggrieved and considered some of the Republican pushback inappropriate and unhelpful though he did not want to address specific critics. He insisted that he is anything but a racist and, with his usual rebuttal by the numbers, stressed that voters have rewarded his outspokenness with a record haul of primary votes while Washington is held in dismal regard.He still thinks he s done nothing wrong. And what s even worse is he thinks politicians calling out his blatant racism is considered being politically correct. One can only imagine what doesn t constitute being politically correct in the mind of Donald Trump.What should worry the nation more? That the Republican nominee thinks he s saying the right thing, or that there are millions of people supporting him?The billionaire blowhard also told the Times that he intends to run his campaign the same way he s been conducting it over the last several months, meaning the racism and sexism will be front and center.This is a man who cannot admit he is wrong. This is a man who cannot apologize for saying the most vile things. This is man who thinks he s so great that Republicans will just fall in line.


I owe our readers an apology.  In covering the ludicrous letter sent by FBI Director James Comey to Republicans that misleadingly suggested new emails had been uncovered implicating Hillary Clinton in criminal activity, out of an abundance of caution I gave Comey the benefit of the doubt . Maybe this wasn't overtly partisan electioneering by a Republican FBI director abusing his position? Maybe he just screwed up massively?  That generous interpretation has all but been torched by Comey himself. Days after his letter made its way to Hillary's political enemies (including Donald Trump), Comey has yet to set the record straight. The scandal has completely fallen to pieces around him. His own behavior in producing the letter, legal experts say, bordered on criminal . But Comey remains silent. He doesn't even have the decency to admit he screwed up.  And that silence has enabled Republicans to continue lying about what is happening. Trump himself tells his supporters that the FBI director is pursuing a "criminal investigation" against Clinton – a blatant lie that could easily be snuffed out with a single message by the suddenly bashful Comey. We are now leading in many polls, and many of these were taken before the criminal investigation announcement on Friday – great in states!  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2016  Instead of setting the record straight, and doing a small part to repair the damage to American democracy he had done, Comey is telling sources that he will refuse to clarify the anti-Hillary letter until after the election . Trump is probably high fiving his campaign staff right now.  NBC's Pete Williams (whose track record covering the botched FBI letter has been impeccable): Pete Williams reports that Comey is UNLIKELY to say anything more before the election  — Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) October 30, 2016  So having felt totally comfortable with hurting Hillary Clinton's campaign (over what amounts to nothing), Comey now decides it would be unfair to Trump to come out with the truth. That is a level of partisanship that is hard to wrap one's head around.  And sadly, many people seem to be unaware that this new Clinton scandal has been completely manufactured by Comey and the Republican Party. According to poll expert Nate Silver, the post-"FBI letter" polls show Clinton's lead dropping. If Democrats keep their eyes on the prize, it shouldn't cost her the election, but it may diminish her chances of succeeding in creating the landslide required to completely eradicate "Trumpism" from American politics.  You may not find that on the law books anywhere, but that is a crime nonetheless.


(Want to get this briefing by email? Here's the .) Good evening. Here's the latest. 1. An attack by suicide bombers at Istanbul's largest airport killed at least 36 people and wounded 140 more, according to the Turkish justice minister, Bekir Bozdag. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the Turkish prime minister said early indications point to the Islamic State. _____ 2. The final report from the House Select Committee on Benghazi, established to investigate the deadly attacks in 2012 on an American compound in Libya, found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state. But the report, after an inquiry lasting two years and costing an estimated $7 million, had plenty of criticism for government agencies that, it said, failed to grasp how dangerous the Libyan city was at the time of the attacks. Above, Representative Trey Gowdy, who led the committee. _____ 3. European leaders urged Britain to consummate its vote last week to leave the European Union, with one saying that Britain and Europe could be "married, or divorced, but not something between. " But the leaders of the "Leave" campaign seem to have no idea what to do after their victory, our analyst writes. Above, Prime Minister David Cameron, center, who has said he would step down. Here's our guide to what has happened so far. _____ 4. Pat Summitt, above, who won eight national basketball championships and more games than any other Division I college coach, male or female, died Tuesday at 64. In the course of her enormously successful career, she transformed the face of American women's sports, drawing national audiences to women's college basketball for the first time. Summitt was legendarily tough: When she dislocated her shoulder in 2008, she tried for more than an hour to reset it herself before finally calling a doctor. _____ 5. Speaking in Pennsylvania, Donald J. Trump vowed to rip up international trade deals and take a hard line against Chinese monetary policy, returning his focus to the economic grievances that have fueled his campaign. He framed his approach as a sharp contrast to the policies of "a leadership class that worships globalism," and warned that his presumptive Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, would "betray" those who support her. _____ 6. On July 4, a NASA spacecraft will finish a nearly 1. trip to Jupiter, dropping into the gas planet's gravitational field and assuming orbit. At least that's the plan. Juno, which has undergone a journey to learn more about the solar system's largest planet, will be the first craft to orbit Jupiter in more than a decade. But if anything goes wrong, it'll be impossible to react in time: Radio signals take 48 minutes to travel from Jupiter to Earth. _____ 7. Senate Democrats blocked a bill that would have provided $1. 1 billion to fight the Zika virus. They said Republicans had sabotaged the bill by adding partisan provisions, like one that included a ban on direct government financing for Planned Parenthood. The legislation's failure highlighted how partisan gridlock can hurt the government's ability to respond to a public health emergency. There are 3, 000 species of mosquitoes but in the Americas, only two are known to carry the Zika virus. In the United States, six mosquito species are particularly concerning. _____ 8. "I'm interested less in what qualifies something as black photography, black art, black cinema, as I am in seeing what comes of agency on the part of black artists. I'm interested in seeing what comes out of their heart and mind and soul. " That's Sarah Lewis, a Harvard professor who guest edited a recent issue of the photography magazine Aperture that was devoted to the black experience. She discussed the project with our Briefing picture editor, Sandra Stevenson. Above, a photo from the project. _____ 9. Amazon has competed directly with print books for some time, but on Tuesday it made a tweak to its Kindle software that borrows from the feature set of a paperback. The new interaction, called Page Flip, mimics the habit of sticking one's thumb into a book to mark a page. Amid all the recent talk of print's resilience, Amazon is taking a page from its competitors' … well, you know. _____ 10. 2016 has been filled with film sequels that have arrived at least a decade after the original. Some of the franchises have fared well upon their return: "Finding Dory," the sequel to "Finding Nemo" (2003) has broken the box office record for a Pixar movie, raking in $286 million. Others have been less welcome. Our critic wrote that "Independence Day: Resurgence," released last week, was plagued by "lackluster, sometimes abysmal, writing," and, with an opening of $41 million, the film did not exactly set the box office aflame. _____ 11. We've put together a guide on how to respond to attacks by wild animals — alligators, bears, sharks and mountain lions. Shark attacks can be countered by pounding them on the nose and scratching at their eyes and gills. But to avoid the encounter altogether, leave your shiny jewelry on your beach towel and avoid swimming at dawn, at dusk or at night. _____ 12. Some animals are not a summertime threat in fact, they're more likely to be threatened. The sunny season, with its thunderstorms and its fireworks, is a tough time for dogs. Some estimate that at least 40 percent of them experience noise anxiety. Animal behavior specialists differ on what should be done to soothe agitated pets, but a new drug, Sileo, garnered mostly good reviews from animal owners. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don't miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here's last night's briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com.


Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday Canada will not walk away from talks to rehash the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) despite a U.S. proposal to include a clause that could terminate the pact in five years. Speaking at a news conference with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in Mexico City as a fourth round of talks to renegotiate NAFTA was held near Washington, Trudeau said he was committed to a "win-win-win" deal. "We will not be walking away from the table based on the proposals put forward," Trudeau said, in response to a question about whether the so-called sunset clause was a poison pill for the talks.


Anyone who s paying attention to the stunning final acts by this President should not be shocked by this potential threat to the world s freedom of speech. He is anything but a lame duck The United States could give control of one of the internet s underlying systems to the United Nations after pledging not to, it has been claimed.The government has announced plans to relinquish control of the online addressing and numbering system, turning it over to a private international organization.For years, the US Department Of Commerce has been responsible for managing URLs and ensuring they lead to the proper web pages.It has subcontracted the task to a private nonprofit, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).But the US government, which funded much of the internet s early development, has so far retained veto power.Although the US role has been minimal over the years, many foreign governments have complained that the internet can never be truly international if the US retains veto power.They have sought instead to shift responsibility to an inter-governmental body such as the UN International Telecommunication Union.But business, academic and civil-society leaders balked, worried that UN involvement would threaten the openness that has allowed the internet to flourish.Concerns were also raised that UN control would give authoritarian states like China and Iran equal votes among other countries in influencing policies that affect free speech.Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary for communications and information at the Commerce Department, said the endorsed plan won t replace Commerce s role with a government-led or inter-governmental solution.But the UN could end up managing the addressing system after all, according to Wall Street Journal columnist L Gordon Crovitz. He based his theory on an inquiry by Americans For Limited Government, an advocacy group that sent a Freedom Of Information Act request related to Icann s future.Icann had asked for all records relating to legal and policy analysis concerning antitrust issues for Icann, Crovitz reported. Icann currently benefits from an antitrust exemption because it operates under government control, he said.The contract between Icann and the US government is expected to expire on September 30.


Mexico's government on Monday said it would work to strengthen the North American economy after the United States published its objectives for the renegotiation of the NAFTA trade deal, which one Mexican official described as "not as bad" as feared. In a statement, the Mexican economy ministry said it expected talks between the United States, Mexico and Canada on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to be able to get under way from Aug. 16. For now, Mexico would continue with domestic consultations on the revamp of the accord until early August, it added. The ministry said it would work "to achieve a constructive negotiation process that will allow trade and investment flows to increase and consolidates cooperation and economic integration to strengthen North American competitiveness." The United States said its top priority for the talks was shrinking the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada, a recurring complaint of U.S. President Donald Trump. [L1N1K8149] In a highly anticipated document sent to lawmakers, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he would seek to reduce the trade imbalance by improving access for U.S. goods exported to Canada and Mexico under the three-nation pact. Speaking under condition of anonymity, a senior Mexican official said the list of priorities was "not as bad as I was expecting" and welcomed that the United States was not pushing to impose punitive tariffs, as Trump has threatened. The official also noted the U.S. wish to ditch the Chapter 19 dispute settlement mechanism that has hindered the United States from pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases against Mexican and Canadian firms would be resisted firmly by Canada. "Canada will fight to (the) death on Chapter 19," the official said.


How many times have the press and the Left admonished Trump for saying we need to do a better job of vetting the refugees coming into America? Call me racist, but the threat of polio, measles, TB and this horrific flesh eating disease all seem like pretty good reasons to re-evaluated our open borders to Muslim refugees position The Syrian refugee crisis has precipitated a catastrophic outbreak of a flesh-eating disease that is spreading across the Middle East and North Africa, according to research published on Thursday in the scientific journal PLOS. Largely missing from news media coverage is that the same news-making scientific report warned the ongoing violence in Syria has created a setting in which we have seen the re-emergence of polio and measles, as well as tuberculosis, hepatitis A, and other infections in Syria and among displaced Syrian refugees. Indeed, in 2013 the World Health Organization documented new cases of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, reporting that year alone the number of confirmed measles cases in Syria reached 139, as compared to no documented cases in 2010 and 2011.The WHO reported that 2013 saw Syria s first outbreak of polio since 1999. According to an April 2015 WHO report, 35 children were subsequently paralysed by polio before the start of a new vaccine campaign.In November, 2014 PLOS documented the spread of measles from among the Syrian refugee population.Regarding the flesh-eating disease, leishmaniasis, PLOP warned in its latest report, We may be witnessing an epidemic of historic and unprecedented proportions, but it has largely been hidden due to lack of specific information. The PLOP journal reported leishmaniasis is now affecting hundreds of thousands of refugees and has spread to Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Yemen. In Yemen alone, 10,000 new cases have been reported annually, the journal reported. Additionally, the number of cases of CL (cutaneous leishmaniasis) has most likely been severely underreported due in part to constraints on collecting data from violence-torn regions, PLOP warned. Few countries have mandated reporting of CL and the resultant weak reporting system promotes a lack of disease awareness and public policies for treatment and prevention, the report added. Due to the violence, Syrians have been forced to flee from their homes and seek refuge across the Middle East, North Africa, and, more recently, Europe, the journal documented.Volcano-like ulcersLeishmaniasis, meanwhile, is a disease caused by protozoan parasites. It is spread almost entirely by sandflies, including those present in the U.S.There are three main types of the disease: cutaneous, mucocutaneous, and visceral leishmaniasis.Cutaneous is the most common form among Syrians. It manifests in skin sores that typically develop within a few weeks or months from a sand fly bite. The sores can initially appear as bumps or nodules and may evolve into volcano-like ulcers.Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis causes skin ulcers like the cutaneous form, as well as mucosal ulcers that usually damage the nose and mouth.Visceral leishmaniasis, which has also been found among Syrian refugees, is the most serious form and can be fatal. It damages internal organs, usually the spleen and liver, and also affects bone marrow.Threat to U.S.?Refugees who enter the U.S. must undergo medical screening according to protocols established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. Each refugee must submit to a physical examination, including a skin test and possibly a chest x-ray to check for tuberculosis,as well as a blood test for syphilis.The blood tests do not currently look for leishmaniasis. Clearly, an attending doctor could easily spot a patient with obvious skin ulcers. However, leishmaniasis cannot be detected upon physical examination if the patient is asymptomatic, as can be the case for years.In December, Dr. Heather Burke, an epidemiologist from the CDC s Immigrant, Refugee, and Migrant Health Branch, explained to Breitbart Jerusalem that there is generally a window of three to six months from the initial physical examination until a refugee departs for the U.S.She said a medical examination is valid for six months, and explained that patients undergo a second examination just prior to departure a quicker fitness to fly screening. While she conceded that this final examination is not thorough, she said it would pick up any visible skin lesions. Burke told Breitbart Jerusalem that she is not aware of a single case of leishmaniasis entering the U.S. via Syrian refugees.Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, warned that most doctors in the U.S. know nothing about leishmaniasis. We d all need to refer patients to tropical diseases specialists, she told Breitbart Jerusalem in December. The treatments are toxic and expensive, and some are not widely available. For Orient, the only sensible public health policy is for all refugees to pass through a quarantined place like Ellis Island. Officials need to know where they ve been and what diseases occur there. We need sophisticated, reliable screening methods and excellent vector control in any areas where refugees stay.


German Chancellor Angela Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the rival Social Democrats (SPD) are neck-and-neck ahead of a crucial regional election in the state of Lower Saxony, an infratest dimap poll showed on Thursday. The Oct. 15 snap election is being followed unusually closely because it follows just three weeks after national elections and will delay federal coalition negotiations, since parties are reluctant to alienate core voters by making compromises ahead of a key regional vote. The poll placed the CDU on 35 percent, just ahead of the SPD on 34 percent. The Greens were in third place on 9 percent, followed by the pro-business Free Democrats on 8 percent. The radical Left party was on 5 percent and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was on 6 percent.


The European Commission said on Friday it had no fresh comment on Catalonia after the region s parliament declared independence from Spain. We have nothing to add to what we said at (the regular) midday (briefing for journalists, Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said. At the briefing, she referred reporters to earlier comments by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has repeatedly said that the debate on Catalonia s independence was an internal Spanish issue.


0 Add Comment  THE RETAIL industry has wasted no time in informing the public it is the first of November, Halloween is over and now it's time to 'hand over all of your fucking money', WWN has learned.  Shops around the country have in recent years made the decision on behalf of the Nation to start Christmas on the 1st of November with a barrage of ads, jingles and more ads, searing them into the public's mind until they are on the verge of insanity.  "Just place all your savings on the counter, and we'll give you some crap made in China in return and nobody has to get hurt," the Retail Association of Ireland (RAI) revealed to the public, while pointing to a calendar.  "It's the first of November and you know what that means, it's fucking Christmas so start spending, and don't be smart and say you're not going 'too mad' this year. Don't fight us on this," the RAI added.  Large Tannoy speakers have been erected across Irish towns and cities, armed with subtle messages chosen to induce people into parting with their cash.  "Ah, they just say things like 'spend, spend, spend' and 'your loved ones will hate you forever and disown you if you don't buy them everything now', played at a higher level than a Metallica concert on speed. We hope the public start to realise what time of year it is," senior It's Never Too Early For Christmas Shopping strategist Henry Mulcahy explained.


Some U.S. intelligence officials are concerned that Donald Trump's "shoot from the hip" style could pose national security risks as they prepare to give him a routine pre-election briefing once he is formally anointed as the Republican presidential nominee. Eight senior security officials told Reuters they had concerns over briefing Trump, whose brash, unpredictable campaign style has been a feature of his rise as an insurgent candidate. Despite their worries, the officials said the "Top Secret" briefing to each candidate would not deviate from the usual format to avoid any appearance of bias. Most of the officials asked for anonymity to discuss a domestic political issue. Current and former officials said that the scandal over Hillary Clinton's use of emails also raises concerns about her handling of sensitive information. The likely Democratic nominee is facing an FBI probe into whether security was compromised and laws were broken by her use of a private email server for government business while she was Secretary of State. "The only candidate who has proven incapable of handling sensitive information is Hillary Clinton," said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "If there is anyone they should be worried about it is Hillary Clinton." But Trump's lack of foreign policy experience, his volatile style, and his little known team of foreign policy advisers make him a unique case, the officials said. "People are very nervous," said one senior U.S. security official. Intelligence and other security and foreign policy officials are also trying to determine "who on (Trump's) team are trustworthy, the official added. "We've never had a situation like this before. Ever." A spokesperson for Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Other officials downplayed such worries, noting that the traditional briefing, while classified as Top Secret, is mostly a broad overview of national security issues and does not include the most sensitive government secrets about intelligence sources and operations. In the post-Second World War era, confirmed U.S. presidential nominees have traditionally received the briefing from intelligence officials — including spy agency chiefs — covering a broad range of national security issues. The nominees are usually briefed shortly after their party nominating conventions, and are allowed to include one or two aides who must undergo security checks. Current and former officials say the nominees are explicitly warned not to share the contents of the briefing, which includes detailed intelligence assessments. After election day, presidents-elect receive the same Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, that the sitting president gets, complete with material on the intelligence agencies' sources, methods, and covert operations. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Reuters that he shared some of the concerns over how Trump, who has never held public office, might use information from the briefing. "I would be very concerned with Mr. Trump's ability to know what he can and can't discuss" publicly about the contents of an intelligence briefing, said Schiff, who has endorsed Clinton for president. Schiff said one consequence of intelligence agencies' worries about Trump's reputation as a loose cannon could be that briefers circumscribe some of the information they provide to Trump and Hillary Clinton, his prospective Democratic opponent. Trump has tended to make broad-brush statements on foreign issues rather than delve into policy nuances. He drew criticism from some former national security officials last month when, without evidence, he quickly tweeted that the downing of an EgyptAir flight appeared to be a terrorist attack. Clinton is honing in on national security as a key potential weakness for Trump, and is set to deliver a foreign policy speech on Thursday designed to portray the billionaire businessman as unfit for the White House. Officials familiar with the views and policy of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's Office, which will give the in-person briefings, say it will do its utmost to avoid any suggestions of political favoritism or bias. Officials say the spy agencies' intend to follow past practice and give identical briefings to both nominees. One former intelligence official said Clinton could have an advantage in the briefing because she would likely ask more probing questions than Trump, a newcomer to foreign policy. The briefings provide an "overview of pressing issues and hot spots around the world," said former CIA officer David Priess, who briefed attorneys general and FBI directors, but not presidents. One U.S. intelligence official said that Trump's style may not be such a risk because the briefings are general in nature and often track publicly available information. "If he reads the papers every day, he won't hear much that will surprise him," the official said. Current and former officials said that covert operations and the intelligence agencies' "sources and methods," which are among the nation's most tightly guarded secrets, are never discussed in the pre-election briefings.


The Republican National Committee had high hopes that Donald J. Trump would deliver a compassionate and measured speech about immigration on Wednesday, and prepared to lavish praise on the candidate on the party's Twitter account. So when Mr. Trump instead offered a fiery denunciation of migrant criminals and suggested deporting Hillary Clinton, Reince Priebus, the party chairman, signaled that aides should scrap the plan, and the committee made no statement at all. The evening tore a painful new wound in Mr. Trump's relationship with the Republican National Committee, imperiling his most important remaining political alliance. Mr. Priebus and his organization have been steadfastly supportive of Mr. Trump, defending him in public and spending millions of dollars to aid him. But the collaboration between Mr. Trump's campaign and Mr. Priebus's committee has grown strained over the last month, according to six senior Republicans with detailed knowledge of both groups, some of whom asked to speak anonymously for fear of exacerbating tensions. There is no prospect of a full public breach between the Trump campaign and the R. N. C. because both sides rely on a joint arrangement crucial to their election efforts. But tensions have grown to such a point that they threaten to diminish the party's ability to work smoothly with Mr. Trump during the most critical Day phase of the race, when the committee traditionally helps supervise an extensive voter turnout effort. Mr. Trump, who has struggled to raise money, is dependent on his party's national committee to perform many of the basic functions of a presidential campaign. Should the partnership continue to deteriorate, it could hinder Mr. Trump's bid for a late comeback in the race. Mr. Priebus said in a statement that there was no significant friction between his committee and the Trump campaign, describing theirs as a "fantastic working relationship. " "Any insinuation to the contrary is purely overblown gossip," Mr. Priebus said. And Jason Miller, Mr. Trump's spokesman, said: "Cooperation between the Trump campaign and the R. N. C. has never been better — we are fully integrated. Everybody knows what has to be done to elect Mr. Trump and stop Hillary Clinton. " But senior advisers to Mr. Priebus and Mr. Trump have collided over the turbulence in the campaign, the senior Republicans said. Mr. Trump's top policy adviser questioned Mr. Priebus's competence in a caustic email this week after the Phoenix speech. And Mr. Trump's Jared Kushner, and Mr. Priebus's chief of staff clashed in a tense meeting over the use of the committee's war chest. Within Mr. Trump's circle, there is impatience with what advisers view as a cautious and conventional party bureaucracy, to accommodate Mr. Trump's improvisational style. At times, Trump aides have vented that frustration in language that was contemptuous of Mr. Priebus, a genial Wisconsin lawyer who has been chairman for five years. When Mr. Trump's immigration speech this week spurred resignations from the National Hispanic Advisory Council for Trump, a group, one of Mr. Trump's top advisers lashed out at Mr. Priebus in an email to the campaign staff. "The RNC needs to take control of this situation and quickly," wrote Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump's senior policy adviser, who often travels with the candidate. Describing the Hispanic Republicans who resigned in dismay as "professional amnesty lobbyists," Mr. Miller asked, "Can Reince do his job?" Inside the committee, top officials have lost confidence in Mr. Trump's ability to right his listing campaign, according to the senior Republicans. Complaints abound about the haphazard nature of Mr. Trump's operation, in which power is so divided among strategists and members of the Trump family that the process of making even simple decisions is laborious and unpredictable. Mr. Trump is on his third campaign leadership team, having dismissed two previous chief advisers, and he has already fired two senior staff members, Rick Wiley and Ed Brookover, whose jobs included coordinating his strategy with the R. N. C. Mr. Priebus, who has a warm relationship with Mr. Trump and speaks with him daily, has also confided to some Republicans that he has been disappointed by Mr. Trump's failure to evolve as a candidate in the general election. He denied in a statement that he had complained about Mr. Trump's refusal to shift course. "I've said exactly the opposite," Mr. Priebus said. "I think he's had his best three weeks. " Robin Hayes, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, said he was optimistic about the emerging relationship between his organization and the Trump campaign in his own state. But Mr. Hayes said it was widely understood within the national committee that Mr. Trump needed to make adjustments. "There have been discussions, that we don't need to create, 'Cleanup on Aisle 3,' for ourselves," Mr. Hayes said. "He's still going to be Trump — that's important — but Trump in a way that fits into a general election. " Throughout the campaign, Mr. Priebus and his committee have been broadly deferential to Mr. Trump, declining to criticize many of his most provocative remarks and quickly designating him as the party's presumptive nominee in May. For Mr. Trump, Mr. Priebus has appeared to be a patient and accommodating partner, eager to promote his campaign and willing to rebuke Republicans who have declined to support him. Recently, the committee has sent aides to work several days a week at Trump Tower to bolster collaboration with Mr. Trump's campaign. These include Sean Spicer, a close adviser to Mr. Priebus. But the conflict has continued. At a meeting in New York late last month, Mr. Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, pointedly challenged Katie Walsh, the committee's chief of staff, over the party's spending plans. In a tone that several witnesses described as imperious and aggressive, Mr. Kushner suggested that the national committee might not be giving Mr. Trump all the support he was due. Ms. Walsh pushed back strongly, telling Mr. Kushner, who has no background in politics, that the committee's and spending are disclosed in detail to the Federal Election Commission, according to the witnesses who were in the room and two people briefed by them afterward. Ms. Walsh told Mr. Kushner that the committee had a responsibility to take a broad view of its finances, mapping out a budget for the entire party and ensuring it could remain operational for the rest of the year, and could not solely focus on Mr. Trump's needs. Mike DuHaime, a former political director for the committee, said tensions with the campaign could be harmful to both sides in the general election. "For the field operation to be truly effective, the campaign, the R. N. C and races need to be on the same page about goals and resource allocation," he said. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who has become one of Mr. Trump's closest advisers, said he was confident that Mr. Priebus remained "on board" with the Trump campaign. At the same time, he acknowledged that much of the institutional Republican Party remained unfriendly to Mr. Trump. "The R. N. C. is giving him a lot of support," Mr. Giuliani said. "He doesn't have the united Republican Party behind him in the way that a more establishment candidate would. "


On Tuesday, Republican front runner Donald Trump made the horrendous mistake of dissing leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, saying that she was unqualified to be a candidate and that she only had the woman s card to help her win over voters.Specifically, Trump had said, The only thing she s got going is the woman s card. And the beautiful thing is, women don t like her. He also added that if Clinton were a man, she would only get 5 percent of the vote. (Obviously, Trump has forgotten about all of these qualifications and accomplishments Clinton has worked for over the years).Later that day, NBC host Rachel Maddow properly ripped Trump for his comments, pointing out what an idiot he was for continuing his long history of misogynistic, sexist comments and pushing female voters even further away. Maddow told co-host Brian Williams: As our colleague and friend Nicolle Wallace pointed out earlier this evening, Donald Trump does have a general election problem. Even if he gets this nomination, even if everything goes the way it has been for him during the primary as he heads toward the general election, he brings with him a big problem with women voters.To say about the woman that you re running against that the only reason she s in the race is because she s a woman that her achievement is basically the result of some sort of affirmative action, some favor being paid to her as a woman and that as a human being she is patently unqualified when she is the former two-term senator from New York and the former secretary of state and has the experience that she s had, I do think that even a lot of Republican women will read that wrong. It s literally baffling and somewhat amusing to think that Trump believes that female voters would connect with a sexist, misogynist candidate like himself. What Trump may not realize is that women actually hate him WAY more than they dislike Clinton. According to a survey by Morning Consult, a nonpartisan firm, only 39% of women view Clinton unfavorably, compared to a whopping 52% for Trump.You can watch Maddow blast Trump below:


A U.S. appeals court on Monday heard nearly two hours of argument on whether to release publicly a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the "Bridgegate" criminal case involving allies of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. The three-judge panel at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia did not immediately rule, and a rapid-fire volley of skeptical questions aimed at lawyers for both sides made it difficult to predict how the court was leaning. A lawyer representing an individual on the list, identified only as "John Doe," urged the court to throw out a lower judge's decision to release the information sought by a group of media companies. "It's not about what they would like to know," said Doe's attorney, Jenny Parker. "It's about what they are legally entitled to know." But Bruce Rosen, a lawyer for the media, argued the public's right to know was paramount. "This is an extremely important issue that goes to how deeply this conspiracy went into the government," he said. The list could shed light on the extent of the scheme to shut down access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in 2013 in what prosecutors claim was an act of political revenge against a local mayor. Christie, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination this year, has denied any knowledge of the plot, but the scandal has remained a source of embarrassment. The list includes individuals that prosecutors believe were part of the conspiracy but are not facing criminal charges. Prosecutors have given defense lawyers the information as part of pretrial proceedings. Monday's argument largely focused on a technical issue: whether the list was a "bill of particulars," a document that can be subject to public release, or an informal discovery letter that would normally stay sealed. Paul Fishman, the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, argued in support of Doe's position, saying prosecutors should be allowed to hand over such information to defendants without fear it will be revealed. As an alternative, the court is considering whether to release all the names but that of John Doe, an option both Doe and the government oppose. Three people have been charged in the case. William Baroni, a former official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, are scheduled to face trial in September. David Wildstein, also a former official at the Port Authority, has pleaded guilty and is cooperating.


0 Add Comment  AS TEACHERS in Ireland enjoy some well earned time off this week, they have been plagued by the undeserved stereotype of being hard party animals that love nothing more than to be 4 days into a session with no end in sight.  WWN carried out some extensive research to discover not all teachers fit the lazy stereotype and are actually making the most of their time off.  Here's 5 things they're doing that won't result in them ending up face down in a pool of their own vomit while haphazardly correcting your child's 'I love my Mammy because' essay.  1) Pre-Session  Don't even try to class this as a balls to the wall session. It isn't. Do not misunderstand the situation. A pre-session is no more a session than the Pope is a Muslim. So don't try and pull a fast one on teachers. Sure it can't be a session, there's no drugs in sight, trust us, we looked.  2) Just the one  Just going for the one is simply that, an expression of a desire to have a casual catch up with a fellow teacher friend without being unfairly labelled a basket case that can't go two minutes without recreating their favourite scenes from Trainspotting. And it's still 'just the one' if it's an early house, after ambling home from last night's pre-session.  3) Correcting essays  See, it's not all fun and games and importing four tonnes of class A drugs. Teachers have some serious work to do, and a bottle of wine and a line will certainly make the whole thing go more smoothly.  4) Bumping into a student in a nightclub  An awkward encounter many people can sympathise with. What is your favourite pupil Thomas doing in Flannerys at 2.30am? And what's he eating a Toffee Crisp for? Why is his mother shouting at you? Wait, why does Flanneys now look eerily like a suburban front garden. An easy mistake to make, don't worry about it.  5) Re-lax-ing-the-fuck-out  Educating the Nation's little shits isn't easy, we can only imagine, which is why teachers often just catch up on their sleep during a midterm. Or if sleep isn't possible, a trance sleep-like state after necking some Ketamine in a field in Kildare.


Austria s new conservative-far right ruling coalition is likely to be sworn in on Dec. 20, an informed source said on Friday, marking a victory for nationalists so far shut out of government elsewhere in western Europe. Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, whose mainstream conservative People s Party (OVP) won a parliamentary election on Oct. 15 but not a majority, has been in coalition talks with Heinz-Christian Strache s Freedom Party (FPO). Both sides have described the discussions as friendly and constructive but so far failed to disclose the kind of sweeping tax, immigration and administrative reforms they had called for in their campaigns. Kurz, 31, who has taken a tough stance on immigration and Muslim parallel societies , tilting towards the FPO line as the far right surged in popularity, is tipped to become chancellor and the youngest head of government in the European Union. There has been no confirmation on who might get which portfolio in the new cabinet, but the anti-immigration FPO has said it would aim for about half of the ministries. The OVP gained 31.5 percent and the FPO 26 percent of votes in the Alpine republic s October election. (Dec. 20) is certainly a possible date (for the swearing-in), OVP Chairwoman Elisabeth Koestinger said on Oe1 radio, adding they would put quality before speed even if that meant a deal only after Christmas. FPO deputy leader Norbert Hofer told Oe1 that no deal had been sealed yet, repeating previous statements that both parties aimed to finish before Christmas. The Austrian national news agency APA also cited Dec. 20 as the most likely date for the swearing-in of the new government by President Alexander Van der Bellen, but listed Jan. 8 as an alternative date. The FPO, which came within a whisker of winning the 2015 presidential election, is allied with France s National Front and Germany s AfD, which in a September election became the third strongest party in Germany s parliament. The populist far right last entered an Austrian federal government in 2000 and currently rules in coalition with centrists in two of the country s provinces.


The bomb used to kill Maltese anti-corruption blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia was probably triggered by a call from a boat off Malta, an investigator said on Tuesday, laying out initial evidence against three suspects. Caruana Galizia died in the powerful blast as she was driving near her home in the village of Bidnija on Oct. 16 a killing that appalled Europe and raised questions about the rule of law on the tiny Mediterranean island. Brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, and Vince Muscat were arrested earlier this month in connection with the murder. The three men, who were known to police, have denied any wrongdoing. Police started laying out their evidence against the trio to a Malta court which will decide whether to order a trial. One of the chief investigators, Keith Arnaud, described how a team from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, brought in by the Malta government to help solve the crime, had focused on a phone number which received a text message at the time of the explosion in Bidnija. Police say the number was not attached to a mobile phone but to a circuit board used in remote-control devices. The appliance was switched on at 2 a.m. local time in Bidnija on the day of the explosion and went off the grid at the time of the blast. Part of the circuit board was later found in the wreckage of the car. Cell phone data suggested the device was triggered by a call from off the coast. CCTV video showed a boat owned by the Degiorgio brothers putting to sea at around 8 a.m. on the day of the killing. It was later seen still at sea at 2.50 p.m. and was idling at the time of the explosion before returning to harbor. The three suspects had never been the target of any of Caruana Galizia s often fierce blogs, leading to questions over their possible motive. The blogger s family say the people who ordered the killing remain at large. Arnaud revealed that police had already been tapping the phone of George Degiorgio at the time of the murder and had heard him asking two separate people to top up the credit of a mobile phone number on the morning of the blast. He did not go into further details, but local media have reported that the same number might have triggered the bomb. Arnaud was the first person called to testify in the pre-trial hearing, which has been delayed twice over the past week after the initial two magistrates assigned to the case recused themselves. A third magistrate, Claire Stafrace Zammit, rejected calls by the defense for her also to abstain from the case because Caruana Galizia had once praised her husband. She dismissed the request as frivolous. The hearing will resume on Wednesday.


With the map of Syria s conflict decisively redrawn in President Bashar al-Assad s favor, his Russian allies want to convert military gains into a settlement that stabilizes the shattered nation and secures their interests in the region. A year after the opposition s defeat in Aleppo, government forces backed by Russia and Iran have recovered large swathes of territory as Islamic State s caliphate collapses. As U.N.-backed talks in Geneva fail to make any progress, Russia is preparing to launch its own political process in 2018. President Vladimir Putin declared mission accomplished for the military on a visit to Russia s Syrian air base this week, and said conditions were ripe for a political solution. Though Washington still insists Assad must go, a senior Syrian opposition figure told Reuters the United States and other governments that have backed the rebellion had finally surrendered to the Russian vision on ending the war. The view in Damascus is that this will preserve Assad as president. A Syrian official in Damascus said it is clear a track is underway, and the Russians are overseeing it . There is a shift in the path of the crisis in Syria, a shift for the better, the official said. But analysts struggle to see how Russian diplomacy can bring lasting peace to Syria, encourage millions of refugees to return, or secure Western reconstruction aid. There is no sign that Assad is ready to compromise with his opponents. The war has also allowed his other big ally, Iran and its Revolutionary Guard, to expand its regional influence, which Tehran will not want to see diluted by any settlement in Syria. Having worked closely to secure Assad, Iran and Russia may now differ in ways that could complicate Russian policy. Assad and his allies now command the single largest chunk of Syria, followed by U.S.-backed Kurdish militias who control much of northern and eastern Syria and are more concerned with shoring up their regional autonomy than fighting Damascus. Anti-Assad rebels still cling to patches of territory: a corner of the northwest at the Turkish border, a corner of the southwest at the Israeli frontier, and the Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Eastern Ghouta and the northwest are now in the firing line. The Revolutionary Guards clearly feel they have won this war and the hardliners in Iran are not too keen on anything but accommodation with Assad, so on that basis it is a little hard to see that there can be any real progress, said Rolf Holmboe, a former Danish ambassador to Syria. Assad cannot live with a political solution that involves any real power sharing, said Holmboe. The solution he could potentially live with is to freeze the situation you have on the ground right now. The war has been going Assad s way since 2015, when Russia sent its air force to help him. The scales tipped even more his way this year: Russia struck deals with Turkey, the United States and Jordan that contained in the war in the west, indirectly helping Assad s advances in the east, and Washington pulled military aid from the rebels. Though Assad seems unbeatable, Western governments still hope to effect change by linking reconstruction aid to a credible political process leading to a genuine transition . While paying lip service to the principle that any peace deal should be concluded under U.N. auspices, Russia aims to convene its own peace congress in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. The aim is to draw up a new constitution followed by elections. The senior Syrian opposition figure said the United States and other states that had backed their cause - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Turkey - had all given way to Russia. Sochi, not Geneva, would be the focal point for talks. This is the way it has been understood from talking to the Americans, the French, the Saudis - all the states, the opposition figure said. It is clear that this is the plan, and there is no state that will oppose this ... because the entire world is tired of this crisis. Proposals include forming a new government to hold elections that would include Syrian refugees. But the time frame: six months, two years, three years, all depends on the extent of understanding between the Russians and Americans , the opposition figure said. If the Russians and Americans differ greatly, the whole table could be overturned. Russia is serious about accomplishing something with the political process, but on its own terms and turf, said senior International Crisis Group analyst Noah Bonsey. I am not sure they have a good sense of how to accomplish that and to the extent that they seek to accomplish things politically, they may run into the divergence of interests between themselves and their allies, he said. The Syrian Kurdish question is one area where Russia and Iran have signaled different goals. While a top Iranian official recently said the government would take areas held by the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces, Russia has struck deals with the Kurds and their U.S. sponsors. From the start of the crisis, there s been a difference between the Russians and the Iranians and the regime, said Fawza Youssef, a top Kurdish politician. The Russians believe the Kurds have a cause that should be taken into account . Damascus, while issuing its own warnings to the Kurds, may continue to leave them to their own devices as it presses campaigns against the last rebel-held pockets of western Syria. The situation in the southwest is shaped by different factors, namely Israel s determination to keep Iran-backed forces away from its frontier, which could prompt an Israeli military response. There are still major questions and a lot of potential for escalating violence in various parts of Syria, said Bonsey.