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April 2 (Reuters) - Imagica Robot Holdings Inc * Says it plans to change company name to IMAGICA GROUP Inc, effective Oct. 1 Source text in Japanese: goo.gl/gN42sd Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)

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Thousands of words will be written about President TrumpDonald John TrumpDemocrats outraged over White House lawyer's claim that some foreign involvement in elections is acceptable Senators take reins of impeachment trial in marathon question session White House announces task force to monitor coronavirus MORE’s Middle East peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians announced on Tuesday. At best, some articles may contain a passing reference to the attendance at the White House event of the ambassadors from Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It’s a pity, because the effective endorsement of the plan by these states is hugely significant. Only two Arab countries currently have peace agreements with Israel: Egypt and Jordan. Neither was represented at the White House when President Trump announced the plan with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuBenjamin (Bibi) NetanyahuMORE. Domestic public opinion in both countries disapproves of relations with Israel. Bahrain, Oman and the UAE are Gulf countries traditionally somewhat less concerned — at least recently — about the Palestinians. Their concern instead is Iran, which Bahrain and the UAE face across the waters of the Persian Gulf and with which Oman shares the Gulf’s gateway, the Strait of Hormuz. With the uncertainty of U.S. regional policy of late, the prevailing wisdom had been that the Gulf countries would have not done anything that might irritate Tehran. Evidently, however, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE have decided that relations with the Trump White House are even more important than keeping steady relations with Iran. The three other Gulf Arab states, which together make up the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar — did not attend the announcement. The surprise here was Saudi Arabia, whose effective leader, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, has said, albeit semi-privately, that he sees Israel as being a natural partner to the kingdom in terms of trade and technology. But Bahrain hosted a peace plan seminar last summer attended by Israel business executives; the UAE is allowing Israel to have a pavilion at the Dubai Expo later this year; and Oman had decades of contacts with Israel even before Netanyahu visited in late 2018. Saudi Arabia has not yet managed such public manifestations of relations. Of the other Gulf states, Kuwait always has been vocally pro-Palestinian, despite expelling thousands for cooperating with Saddam Hussein’s occupation in 1990-1991. And Qatar, which ironically was the first Gulf state to open up to Israel in the late 1990s — for which it was condemned by its neighbors — now prefers a balancing act that tilts towards the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where it hands out cash for public works projects and impoverished families. But this is the Middle East, and the Qatar example is a useful reminder that trends can be reversible. Public opinion in the Gulf states is not totally absent, particularly in Bahrain where elements of the majority-Shia population are prone to incitement by Iran. And this also will be a test for the new Sultan Haitham of Oman, who replaced Sultan Qaboos upon his death this month. The most immediate hurdle could be an Arab League foreign ministers meeting, which has been called for Feb. 1 in Cairo. The organization hates to be divided, although as it stands today, it’s hard to think of a draft resolution on President Trump’s plan that could achieve consensus backing. Simon Henderson is the Baker Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Follow him on Twitter @shendersongulf. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2020 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Government

Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman who came within three percentage points of beating Sen. Ted Cruz in a dramatically publicized midterm Senate race, is running for president. In announcing his candidacy, O’Rourke said he is going to run a “positive” campaign. “I just don’t get turned on by being against,” he told Vanity Fair in a profile that amounted to a campaign announcement. “I really get excited to be for. That’s what moves me.” But what exactly is Beto O’Rourke for? It’s a question that is not easy to answer from a three-term Democratic legislator, who ran a 2018 Senate campaign as ubiquitous as it was vague on the details. That was Texas. Now O'Rourke will be challenged to define himself in a Democratic primary field where candidates are eagerly staking out progressive positions on big policy ideas like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, taking on Wall Street, and tuition-free college. O’Rourke is known for his good looks, charisma, and record-breaking fundraising numbers, but it’s difficult to say where he stands on some of the key issues that matter to Democratic primary voters. “I don’t know. I’m just, as you may have seen and heard over the course of the campaign, I’m not big on labels,” O’Rourke said in December when asked if he identified as a progressive. “I don’t get all fired up about party or classifying or defining people based on a label or a group. I’m for everyone.” Here’s a look at what O’Rourke has done as a legislator and what he’s said about some of the major issues Democrats are taking on in the presidential race. Does he support it? Unclear. In his campaign announcement video, O’Rourke failed to throw his support behind Medicare for All and characteristically kept his ideas about health care vague. “We can ensure that every single American can see a doctor,” he said. During his 2018 Senate campaign, O’Rourke initially embraced Medicare for All, but he later shied away from the concept as he tried to position himself as a centrist. He stopped using the words “Medicare for All” and “single payer,” as noted by Politico, and instead opted for sweeping, indefinite ideas like “universal, guaranteed, high-quality health care for all.” O’Rourke also failed to co-sponsor the House’s Medicare for All legislation in 2017, and he has indicated that he does not support eliminating private insurance — a key element of single-payer legislation that five Democratic presidential candidates have co-sponsored in the Senate. Does he support it? Maybe O’Rourke seemed to tacitly zero in on climate change as one of his big issues in his campaign announcement. “We are truly now, more than ever, the last great hope for Earth,” O’Rourke said. But does he support a Green New Deal, the radical restructuring of the U.S. economy to divest from fossil fuels and pour resources into green infrastructure and jobs? Well, it’s the “best” idea he’s seen, at least. “It is the best proposal that I've seen to ensure that this planet does not warm another two degrees celsius, after which we may lose the ability to live in places like El Paso,” O’Rourke told BuzzFeed News last month. Maybe something better will come along. O’Rourke also defended himself as a capitalist by claiming that we need free markets to defeat the existential threat of climate change. "Climate change is the most immediate example of that If you're going to bring the total innovation and ingenuity of this country to bear, our system as a country, our economy, is going to have to be part of that," he recently said to reporters in Texas. Does he support it? Unclear O’Rourke has called for more affordable college but has yet to explicitly support tuition-free college, as many Democratic candidates have ahead of 2020. He also did not sponsor a House bill for free college in 2017. He has previously endorsed less sweeping ideas, like “debt-free” college, as well as two years of free community college. Does he support it? No Two 2020 candidates — Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — are loathed by Wall Street mega-donors. They seem to adore O’Rourke. “He’s game changing,” Robert Wolf, an investment banker who raked in Wall Street money for Obama in 2008 and 2012, told Politico back in November about a potential Beto run. “If he decides to run, he will be in the top five. You can’t deny the electricity and excitement around the guy.” And for good reason. O’Rourke’s voting record indicates a reluctance to attack big banks in a way that the furthest-left 2020 candidates have. In 2018, for example, he voted to weaken a key rule of the Dodd-Frank. And although he’s not such a big fan of the “progressive” label, O’Rourke has repeatedly embraced the “capitalist” label, which puts him at stark odds with Sanders and other prominent Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "I'm a capitalist,” O'Rourke told reporters recently in El Paso. “I don't see how we're able to meet any of the fundamental challenges that we have as a country without, in part, harnessing the power of the market.” O’Rourke has one of the more conservative voting records of any recent Democratic member of the House. He voted in line with Trump 30 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight, compared to 17 percent for the average Democrat. In all three terms he served in Congress, O’Rourke was more conservative than at least 76 percent of House Democrats. Despite positioning himself as a progressive when it comes to immigration and climate change, O’Rourke has supported GOP bills that bolstered the fossil-fuel industry and watered down hiring requirements for border patrol agents. He also broke his 2018 campaign promise to not accept oil and gas money, and he voted to table articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. He also voted to make it easier to seek the death penalty against people who attempt murder on first responders. O’Rourke never joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus during his three terms in Congress and instead was a member of the New Democratic Caucus, which is far more aligned with centrist Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Cover image: Former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke speaks to a crowd of marchers during the anti-Trump 'March for Truth' in El Paso, Texas, on February 11, 2019. (Photo: PAUL RATJE/AFP/Getty Images)

Politics

US

OSLO (Reuters) - Blackrock, the world’s largest investment company, bought a 197.4 megawatt(MW) wind farm in western Norway through one of its funds and will cover its construction cost, the firm and the project’s previous owner Zephyr both said on Thursday. Zephyr, a Norwegian wind farm developer and operator, will continue to manage the farm’s construction, which will cost about 200 million euros ($231.76 million) and is expected to be completed by the end of 2020. The project will be built on the west coast of Norway, close to the city of Floroe and aluminum maker Alcoa will buy the entire electricity produced for a period of 15 years to power its Norwegian based production plants, they said. The wind farm, called Guleslettene, will carry 47 turbines of 4.2 MW capacity from Vestas and will have an ability to produce enough electricity to power more than 40,000 houses, said Zephyr. The construction cost will be funded by Blackrock’s equity and a long-term loan from Dekabank. After the transaction, the cost of which was not disclosed, Blackrock has $5 billion of renewable energy assets under management, with 170 projects within wind and solar, it said. To date, BlackRock Renewable Power has a total invested portfolio of approximately 4.6 gigawatt (GW) of generating capacity across wind and solar projects located in Norway, Sweden, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Ireland, France and Britain. Zephyr AS is owned by the energy companies Vardar [BUSFYV.UL], Glitre Energi [ENRBS.UL] and Oestfold Energi [OSTFO.UL]. Reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos, editing by Terje Solsvik

Renewable Energy

Wind Power

The rapper Danny Brown hangs out in a new Viceland show. And “Sacred Games” returns for a second season on Netflix. DANNY’S HOUSE 10 p.m. on Viceland. The rapper Danny Brown kicks off his new hang-out-and-talk show with two guests: the comedian Ron Funches and the rapper ASAP Rocky. Rocky made news outside the music world when he was arrested and jailed in Sweden earlier this summer, a situation that became an international incident. The stakes are much lower here, with Brown kicking back on comfy retro furniture to talk with Funches and Rocky about aliens, the afterlife and the ideal U.F.O. design (wood grain and gold trim for Brown, please). NEIGHBORS (2014) 6 p.m. on FXX. Chaotic debauchery dukes it out with marital bliss in this crude comedy, which stars Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne as young parents who can’t get a good night’s sleep after fraternity members move in next door. The frat is helmed by a pair of brothers played by Zac Efron and Dave Franco, who take the lead in terrorizing the couple when the relationship between the new sets of neighbors goes south. The story “ascends to an impressively high level of farcical anarchy,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times. Scott added that the movie’s director, Nicholas Stoller, is “good at keeping the momentum going while also finding time for offbeat grace notes and occasional bursts of emotional candor.” For a different version of a very similar story, see NEIGHBORS 2: SORORITY RISING (2016), airing at 8 p.m. on FXX. That movie pits Rogen and Byrne’s characters against a sorority whose members are portrayed by Beanie Feldstein, Chloë Grace Moretz, Awkwafina and others. ALTERNATE ENDINGS: SIX NEW WAYS TO DIE IN AMERICA 8 p.m. on HBO. A living wake, a green burial and an extraterrestrial send-off are a few of the atypical end-of-life events shown in this documentary, which showcases a handful of people who have chosen nontraditional methods of dying or committal to the grave, and how their decisions affect their loved ones. SACRED GAMES Stream on Netflix. Netflix’s adaptation of Vikram Chandra’s bloody 2006 gangster novel returns for a second season. The show tells the story of Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan), a detective who spent the first season knee-deep in the Mumbai underworld. (In his review for The Times, Mike Hale called that season “energetic and entertaining, if not entirely satisfying.”) Season 2 involves a mysterious cult. THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE (2016) Rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. With “The Angry Birds Movie 2” hitting theaters this week, families might enjoy catching up on this animated movie based on the popular video game. Discerning children might want to opt out, though: In his review for The Times, Glenn Kenny referred to it as “not much beyond a superficially amiable ball of fluff.”

Entertainment

Television

The Satanic Temple debuted its new international headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts, this week. The multi-use space—the group's first location available to the general public—will ultimately include the temple's offices, an art gallery, a lecture room, and a gift shop. It will also house the temple's controversial Baphomet monument, a one-and-a-half-ton, nine-foot bronze statue of the goat-headed satanic figure. But when the new HQ opened for business Friday morning, it was a far cry from the reaction the group got when it unveiled the "most controversial and politically charged contemporary work of art in the world" in Detroit last year. This time, there were no marching protesters, no death threats, no local reverends organizing mass prayers. Aside from some local media, there was just one fan waiting when the doors opened—a young woman named Gwen, a local who arrived early for a chance to take a photo with Baphomet. Other visitors trickled in throughout the afternoon. "The Boston Globe reported that the mayor's office only received four concerned calls," Satanic Temple spokesman Doug Mesner—a.k.a. Lucien Greaves—tells VICE. "It's a lot different." (The Temple HQ has a cork bulletin board hanging in its gift shop to collect hate mail, just in case. On opening day, there was just one typed letter posted.) Mesner says the new headquarters, a former funeral home, was donated to the temple by a benefactor last year. The first floor serves as the Salem Art Gallery, which currently features work by the Baphomet sculpture artist Mark Porter, in addition to other satanic sculptures (like a more traditional—and graphic—hermaphroditic depiction of Baphomet by artist Chris P. Andres). That Baphomet monument is stored in an unassuming shed outside, available for viewing only via purchase of a ticket at the gift shop. The interior is sparse, accented by blood-red curtains and other gothic touches. "A lot of this was already here," Mesner explains. "Above the windows, it has this sort of bat wing motif going on. It seems like something we must have requested. But it's actually not. It's funny. It must have been here since it was a funeral home. You'd think they'd go for something sunnier." Mesner says the city is investigating the building's zoning, which is currently certified as a place of assembly with a capacity of 50 people. But the official limit doesn't really matter, as he hopes to reach a wider audience by airing lectures and other happenings held at the space. "This will be kind of a focus point where we're going to have livestreamed broadcasts, lectures, and events that people can also participate in online," he says. Whatever restrictions the donated building might have, Mesner believes the pros outweigh the cons. "It wasn't so much chosen by a group acknowledgement—it came our way," he tells me. "That said, there are obvious benefits, I think, to being in Salem." That's because the history of Satan is inextricably baked into the history of this city, thanks in no small part to the infamous Salem witch trials of the late 17th century. The Puritans may have come to Massachusetts in search of their own religious freedom, but that didn't stop them from executing about 20 people, including 14 women, accused of acting under satanic influence as part of a wave of mass hysteria in the 1690s. But since that dark period, Salem has come to nurture a culture that is rather inclusive and tolerant of fringe religions. In fact, the city has become a tourist destination of sorts for fans of the occult. There is a significant population of witches, or Wiccans, living here, along with numerous shops offering potions, healing crystals, tarot cards, and psychic readings. "The average person in Salem that isn't a witch at least understands what witchcraft is, as opposed to other places where people aren't exposed to it," explains Thomas Vallor, a Salem historian—and himself a witch. Vallor guides the Salem Witch Walk tour through Crow Haven Corner, Salem's oldest witch shop. Vallor adds that Salem's modern-day status as a hub of the occult stems from a confluence of its dark pre-colonial history and the allure of 20th-century television: In the 1970s, the cast and crew of the TV series Bewitched came to town to shoot a story arc. Soon after it aired, tourists were flocking to Salem in search of real witches—only to find a sleepy New England town. Around the same time, an enterprising woman named Laurie Cabot decided to open a witch shop. "She didn't realize how big it was going to be," Vallor says. "She became like rock star." Cabot went on become one of the world's most famous witches, and Salem rose to prominence as a sort of witch capital. That's not to say the area's witches don't have haters. Vallor says that during the city's peak tourism season around Halloween, fundamental Christian protesters are known to bus in from out of town. "They're never from Salem," he insists. "They're people with signs saying, 'Catholics, fags, Jews, and witches are all going to hell.'" Vallor adds that the locals—witches or otherwise—are known to take the protests in stride. "A lot of tourists, just seeing that—that reminds them of the witch trials immediately." Despite Salem's religious tolerance, Mesner has taken what he describes as a "fatalistic" approach to security for the Satanic Temple HQ, installing an alarm system, surveillance cameras, and bars on the windows. After all, the building will serve as a permanent resting place for the Baphomet monument—as long as it isn't needed elsewhere. Although fundamentalist Christians might paint both groups with a broad brush, Satanists are distinguished from witches—the former tend to describe themselves as adhering to a non-theistic religion opposed to superstition, while the latter decidedly embraces it. However, both Mesner and Vallor believe the two groups have overlapping interests. "I think more and more people are starting to realize that by fighting for our religious liberty—we're fighting for everybody's freedom of religious liberty as well," Mesner says of his fellow Satanists. He adds that the history of the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s—when sensational child-abuse allegations, many since debunked, rocked America—will also be featured in an exhibition at the headquarters, a reminder that moral panics are never too far in the rearview mirror. Meanwhile, bolstering this most unholy alliance, Vallor points out that the figure of Baphomet is significant to witches, too—a fixture in tarot card decks and other artwork. "This is something that Satanists and witches almost agree on, that the devil can be a representation of the darker parts of you," he says. "But we don't look at the dark as evil, but rather more naturalistic or primal." For more on the Satanic Temple, visit its website. Follow Leyland DeVito on Twitter.

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Other

The debate over tax reform has highlighted many quirks of the tax code, but in some instances it has also highlighted quirks of the economy. Such is the case with university endowments. What you do with regard to debt and savings can reveal much about your beliefs about the future. If you are a young person and you believe your future will be improved by getting a higher education, it makes sense to borrow money to pay for that education. If you are later in your career and you don’t expect to work forever, it makes sense to be saving or to have saved money.   This is also true at the firm level. Companies without compelling investment opportunities may retain cash until there is a good deal in front of them. The reverse is also true. Many of the prominent tech companies that we see in the headlines take outside investment and don’t make money for years in part because it is so valuable to invest their resources in more growth.  Even countries operate in this way. Nations that have significant natural resources often establish a sovereign wealth fund. With the influx of significant money, these countries can’t always invest in ways that make sense today, and by using up resources today, they have an obligation to future generations. When a country can borrow at a low rate to invest in their economy and produce higher rates of growth, they generally do. In other words, saving money implies that you don’t have a compelling growth opportunity available, and running a deficit or taking out debt means you (and those who lend to you) think you do have significant opportunities to make a compelling investment in yourself or your organization.  This makes it strange to contemplate the trend in higher education over the past several decades. The joke is that Harvard is an investment fund running a university. But that structure of high rates of savings and broad lending to other entities implies something that is less funny than strange. It indicates that there are not more compelling investment opportunities within the university itself. This despite the fact that we hear all the time about the increasing returns to education and value of a college degree.  The new tax on large endowments is a result of a number of political dynamics, perhaps most importantly a search for revenue. But it also begs the question of why these piles of money are accumulating and why schools don’t have a better use for the funds internally.  One could argue that there is a reasonable need for a rainy day fund, or that alumni often want to help those who come after them. But an endowment didn’t save Sweet Briar College from nearly closing, and many times, restrictions on gifts make the gifts irrelevant over time as society and research changes. The other real pressure for some of these large endowments is the prestige factor. Sitting on a big pile of money factors into rankings and perceptions. Also related to prestige is selectivity. One of the ways that investment would make most sense for universities is to expand their student body, but this can lead to higher admissions rates or a less personal experience for the students. There are many critiques of higher education today, from the roiling debates over free speech to costs that continue rising to adaptation for the students of today. Add to that list the perpetual growth of perpetual endowments in a context where they should have compelling investment opportunities in the present. If one day we can just download knowledge to our brains and a university degree is unnecessary, some of those piles of money may seem pretty silly. Maybe we should be spending them today to get to tomorrow faster. Editor's Note: This story incorrectly stated that Sweet Briar College had closed. The error has been corrected. Matt McDonald is a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies, a consulting firm. Previously, McDonald served under President George W. Bush as associate communications director with responsibility for economic issues. He also led research and messaging for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign related to private equity issues. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Education

College

The European Union will oversee elections held in Zimbabwe this summer, the first time it has done so in 16 years, in a move that could bolster a weak domestic economy hungry for foreign investment. On Monday, a memorandum of understanding for the deployment of an Election Observation Mission was signed by European Union Ambassador Philippe van Damme and Zimbabwean Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Trade Sibusiso Moyo. The move marks the first time since 2002 that the EU has dispatched a team to observe elections in the country. The Zimbabwean government had invited the EU back in March to observe the historic vote, which is expected in July. The delegation will work across the country, and also monitor complaints that may be filed after the election. "EU election observers maintain strict impartiality, objectivity and independence," said a statement announcing the news. Holding free and fair elections has been front and centre of Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa's agenda since he took power in November. Former President Robert Mugabe was ousted in a coup, ending his rule of nearly four decades. The news "is a further sign of Mnangagwa's efforts to normalise political and ultimately business relations with the West," Charles Laurie, director and head of politics at analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC Tuesday. "Zimbabwean manufacturers, traders and tourism operators will rejoice if the EU's presence at the polls proves to be the first step towards extending a political olive branch," he said. "An endorsement of the election's legitimacy from Brussels is a critical next step for major Western investors to set aside their doubts over whether the country is 'open for business.'" Mnangagwa has courted the international investment community in an attempt to turn around Zimbabwe's basket case economy, infamous for its corruption and hyperinflation. Earlier in May Zimbabwe applied to re-join the Commonwealth, a 53-nation bloc comprising of the U.K. and its former colonies. Membership of the group could bring trade benefits to Zimbabwe. Mugabe pulled the country out of the bloc in 2003 in a row over sanctions. But, Mnangagwa's first state visit outside of Africa was to China in April of this year. In Laurie's view, Mnangagwa understands the limitations of Zimbabwe's historically close relationship with the world's second largest economy. "He recognises that (Zimbabwe's) so-called 'Look East' policy has failed to remedy a dismal, politically-skewed and perilous environment in which local business all but ground to a halt." Resource-rich Zimbabwe has the world's second biggest platinum reserves after neighboring South Africa, as well as gold, diamonds, coal and lithium.

Politics

Government

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. envoy for Libya said Monday he fears the recent agreement to resume oil production in the conflict-torn country will not hold unless two issues are speedily tackled — distribution of wealth and "endemic plundering of resources." Ghassan Salame told the Security Council in a video briefing that unless the issues are addressed it will also "be difficult to advance the political process." Libya descended into chaos following the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country is now split between rival governments in the east and west, each supported by an array of militias. The Security Council has backed the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections in Libya this year but Salame warned that "without the right conditions, it would be unwise to conduct elections." He said national political consultations over the last 14 weeks that included more than 75 meetings in Libya and abroad and over 7,000 participants showed that "the Libyan people want clear and effective leadership by legitimate bodies, formed through elections." "However, a handful of people defy this popular desire," Salame said. "The few who benefit from the status quo will, if left unchecked, do whatever they can to hinder elections. Unfortunately, they can do much, especially as they hold crucial, and too often lucrative, official positions." "Without clear and strong messaging to those who would attempt to stall or disrupt these elections, the conditions will not be met," he warned. In a statement after closed consultations following the open briefing, the Security Council "underlined support for the U.N.-facilitated, Libyan-owned political process, including the preparations for credible and inclusive elections." But the U.N.&aposs most powerful body made no mention of "spoilers" trying to thwart the elections. The Security Council did welcome the National Oil Corp.&aposs announcement last Wednesday that it was in charge of the oil ports and would resume exports. The firm is controlled by the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, which is in the west. The self-styled Libyan National Army allied with the east&aposs interim government and led by Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter seized the ports earlier this year from another militia led by Ibrahim Jadhran, a rebel commander opposed to Hifter who took part in the 2011 uprising that toppled Gadhafi. The seizure prompted the National Oil Corp., with international support, to issue a "force majeure" to halt exports, which are Libya&aposs main source of income. The LNA said it agreed to return the ports for a commitment by the Tripoli-based government in the west to investigate allegations that oil and gas revenues had been used to fund terrorist organizations. The Security Council condemned attacks by Jadhran&aposs militia against the country&aposs oil infrastructure and said it now expects the National Oil Corp. "to continue its work unimpeded." Salame told council members the U.N. "will redouble its efforts to push for economic reforms, as the very stability and unity of the country are at stake." Libya is "in decline," he said. "The crisis in the oil crescent gave us a glimpse of what is in store if tangible progress is not made now — economic collapse, the breakdown of public services, and more frequent and intense outbreaks of violence." "In a country where terrorists lurk, where criminals are waiting to traffic migrants, where foreign mercenaries are increasing in number, where the oil industry hangs in the balance, this should be of concern to all," Salame said. He urged Libya&aposs rival leaders to stand by their commitment at a May 29 international meeting in Paris "to engage constructively to enable elections to take place by the end of the year."

Politics

Middle East

Jennifer Lawrence is going to star in a film for A24 and IAC FILMS, Variety and Deadline report—and while we don't know a ton about the project yet, what we have so far is pretty goddamn promising. It's executive produced by J-Law herself, along with Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, and Justine Polsky—a stacked crew, judging by their work on films like Lady Bird and Mid90s—and it's being helmed by Lila Neugebauer, an extremely talented theater director. Here's the bad news: We have no idea what the film is actually about, the production timeline, what Jennifer Lawrence's character is, who her co-stars might be, or what the project is called. (It says "secret" in the headline; if you're here to find out this information, I don't know what to tell you.) But here's what we do know: The executive producers, Scott Rudin and Eli Bush, appear to be A24's power production couple. The duo worked together on some of A24's most impressive movies, including Eighth Grade and Ex Machina, along with both Greta Gerwig and Jonah Hill's stellar directorial debuts. That's not to mention their work on FX's What We Do in the Shadows TV adaptation, which bangs. (Or rather... fangs? I'm so sorry). That's to say nothing of Jennifer Lawrence herself, who can play the hell out of basically anyone. We've seen her take on roles from Katniss Everdeen to Mystique, from a Russian intelligence officer to the wife of a con man. She has had a few stumbles—why, Passenger, why do you exist—but she's almost always stellar in indies. As Indiewire points out, her breakout came from Winter's Bone, which won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance. For its part, indie distributor A24 has been practically minting Oscar nominations lately. Their brand is so strong, fans even make lists of films that seem like they should be made by A24, the unifying characteristic of them being that they're all very, very good. Oh, and obviously it is also a good thing that Jennifer Lawrence is emerging from a year-long acting hiatus like a beautiful butterfly from its chrysalis. Welcome back, J-Law! Hope you had a good break! Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily. Follow Nicole Clark on Twitter.

Entertainment

Television

TEHRAN, Iran – Money exchange shops across Iran cautiously reopened on Tuesday after being shut for five months amid economic turmoil fanned by America&aposs withdraw from the nuclear deal. Shops opened their doors in the Iranian capital, Tehran, though some displayed no exchange rates late into the morning. Two traders told The Associated Press that initial rates likely would be around 93,000 rials to the dollar, down from 98,000 to $1 on the black market the night before. The two spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Iran&aposs official exchange rate remains 42,000 rials to $1. Iran had announced this week that exchange shops would reopen despite the United States re-imposing some sanctions on the Islamic Republic late on Monday. Those sanctions target financial transactions that involve U.S. dollars, Iran&aposs automotive sector, the purchase of commercial planes and metals, including gold. U.S sanctions targeting Iran&aposs oil sector and Central Bank are to be re-imposed in early November. The Islamic Republic&aposs economy, hobbled by years of sanctions, has suffered in recent months with the uncertainty over the atomic accord. The U.S. move has dismayed America&aposs European allies trying to preserve the nuclear deal. Iran has accused the U.S. of reneging on the nuclear agreement, signed by the Obama administration, and of causing the country&aposs recent economic unrest. Iranian authorities recently also arrested 45 people, including the Central Bank&aposs deputy chief, as part of a crackdown on financial fraud, according to judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi. The crackdown followed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei&aposs orders to the country&aposs president, parliament speaker and judiciary chief to work together to resolve the crisis. President Hassan Rouhani&aposs administration also replaced the Central Bank governor and took other measures to shore up the national currency. Banker Bahaeddin Hashemi predicted the new policies would take at least a month to show their effects.

Politics

International Relations

Markets in Asia closed higher on Thursday, with stocks clawing back gains after sliding in the last session on trade-related fears. Gains in the region came after U.S. stocks closed above session lows on fresh developments related to planned metals tariffs. The benchmark index rose 0.54 percent, or 115.35 points, to close at 21,368.07 and the Topix closed up 0.35 percent. Steel producers gained on the back of tariff-related developments out of Washington, with Posco up 3.02 percent and Hyundai Steel rising 3.15 percent by the end of the day. Hong Kong's jumped 1.69 percent, or 509.64 points, by 3:05 p.m. HK/SIN as all of its sectors traded in positive territory. The heavily weighted financials sector was firmly higher: HSBC advanced 0.72 percent and insurer AIA added 3.03 percent ahead of the market close. Mainland China markets closed higher, with gains steepening after the release of upbeat trade data. The added 0.54 percent to close at 3,289.29 and the Shenzhen composite rose 1.01 percent to finish at 1,856.47. Meanwhile, health care and consumer stocks were the best-performing sectors on the blue chip CSI 300 index. The gains came after Chinese exports in February jumped 44.5 percent from one year ago, Reuters reported. That was above the median 13.6 percent rise estimated in a Reuters poll. Down Under, the S&P/ASX 200 tacked on 0.69 percent to close at 5,942.90. Most of the index's sub-indexes notched gains, although the materials and energy sectors were in the red after commodities struggled in the last session. U.S. stock indexes, which had initially tumbled following Gary Cohn's resignation from the Trump administration, pared some losses after the White House hinted that Mexico and Canada could be exempt from planned metals tariffs. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Thursday said recently announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports could include "potential carve-outs ... based on national security. " The president is expected to sign off on the tariff plan this week, she said. While that was positive news for Canada and Mexico, trade-related concerns were unlikely to completely evaporate. "[T]he potential for more, rather than less tariffs for China and Europe, remains the key risk," said Rodrigo Catril, a senior FX strategist at National Australia Bank, in a morning note. Cohn, Trump's top economic advisor and a free trade advocate, had resigned after the president announced last week that tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent would be implemented on steel and aluminum imports, respectively. Markets also found "further reprieve after White House trade advisor Peter Navarro indicated he was not a candidate to replace the outgoing Gary Cohn," Mizuho Bank economist Zhu Huani wrote in a note. Against the yen, the dollar last traded at 105.96, slipping once more below the 106 level after closing at 106.80 on Wednesday. The U.S. currency had dipped from the 106.1 handle to levels around 105.5 on the back of Cohn's resignation during Wednesday Asia hours. Meanwhile, oil pared some losses after tumbling in the previous session due to trade concerns. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude advanced 0.16 percent to trade at $61.25 per barrel after settling 2.3 percent lower on Wednesday. Brent crude futures were up 0.16 percent at $64.44. On the data front, fourth-quarter gross domestic product in Japan was revised higher to 1.6 percent from an initial estimate of 0.5 percent, Reuters said. That was also above the 0.9 percent increase projected in a Reuters poll. Of note, the Bank of Japan began its monetary policy meeting on Thursday. The European Central Bank, meanwhile, will announce its rates decision during European hours. The central bank is expected to remain cautious and keep its policy unchanged.

Finance

Investment

Kicking tradition to the curb, the Academy has controversially decided to eliminate four categories from the live broadcast of the 91st Oscars. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the awards for best cinematography, film editing, live-action short, and makeup and hairstyling will be presented during commercial breaks, not during the broadcast as usual. The plan to present during commercial breaks was reportedly formulated by the Academy's board of governors in August, but exactly which categories hadn't been decided on at the time. So, now we know. Although the cuts are reportedly meant to shorten the show — 24 awards in three hours — they've angered many who describe it as disrespectful. Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro, who took best picture and best director for The Shape of Water in 2018, said cinematography and editing in particular, are "the very heart of our craft ... they are cinema itself." His film was nominated for both categories last year. If I may: I would not presume to suggest what categories to cut during the Oscars show but - Cinematography and Editing are at the very heart of our craft. They are not inherited from a theatrical tradition or a literary tradition: they are cinema itself. — Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) February 12, 2019 Others jumped to criticise the decision, calling it  "reprehensible." The Oscars get shit for being elitist but they are one of the only awards shows that televises winners in the craft categories. This decision is reprehensible. Shame on the Academy. Shame on ABC. If you don’t love a 3+ hour Oscars, you don’t love the Oscars. https://t.co/zSNOTDHhSQ — Chris Schleicher (@cschleichsrun) February 11, 2019 Because cinematography and makeup are not important in filmmaking... 😐 https://t.co/OEPwxoG4PT — Margarita Noriega (@margarita) February 12, 2019 This is disrespectful to present the awards to the winners of these categories during commercial breaks. #Oscars https://t.co/J4M0zGgR2i — Shutter Wolf (@ShutterWolf) February 12, 2019 Cinematography and film editing made film cuts into an art form in movie history. The Academy made a terrible thing to deny the core of visual media. #Oscars — Nam Myoung-Hee (@worrynet) February 12, 2019 Even without a host's warm-up number & monologue taking up time, they feel they still need to eliminate those from the live broadcast?!? Shameful. Those categories were their only time to shine. — Jon Forsythe and Vote November 6th (@JonJForsythe) February 12, 2019 Let's apply @TheAcademy's logic, (in relegating 4 categories to commercial breaks) to LAST YEAR'S Oscar ceremony.1. Cinematography: Roger Deakins finally wins after 13 losses. He gets a standing ovation."I really love my job. I've been doing it a long time, as you can see." pic.twitter.com/mu39FnPJUM — Rhett Bartlett (@dialmformovies) February 11, 2019 Academy president John Bailey announced the decision to keep the awards rolling in the ad breaks in a membership email on Monday, reports THR. "Viewing patterns for the Academy Awards are changing quickly in our current multi-media world, and our show must also evolve to successfully continue promoting motion pictures to a worldwide audience," he wrote.  Bailey said the four categories will be streamed online in partnership with ABC and on Oscar.com and the Academy's social channels. He also said the four categories could rotate in years ahead, and that those picked this year will be guaranteed a spot on live TV next year. The speeches of the four ad-break winners may air later in the broadcast, although this could reportedly be edited for time. The cuts are the latest in a slew of unpopular announcements made by the Academy, including the announcement of the Popular Film category and the possible restriction on performances by Original Song nominees — this has since been walked back, with all nominees said to perform (although Kendrick Lamar and SZA have not confirmed a performance of "All the Stars"). All that's outside the turmoil surrounding Kevin Hart's hosting, with a string of old homophobic tweets from the star leading to his stepping down from the post, and the Academy deciding to go hostless for this year's ceremony. Plus, the Academy ruffled feathers in January with rumours of abandoning a longtime presenting tradition. It's custom to invite the winners of Best Actor and Best Actress to present the award to the following year's recipients — the same goes for Best Supporting Actress and Actor.  When I Tonya star and Best Supporting Actress recipient Allison Janney voiced her disappointment at not being included in the 2019 ceremony, the Academy seemed to walk back its decision by confirming last year's winners, including Janney, as presenters. Last year, Allison Janney, Frances McDormand, Gary Oldman and Sam Rockwell had their names read from an envelope and they took home Oscar gold.This year, they'll help make more dreams come true.We're thrilled to announce they'll be presenters at this year's show. #Oscars — The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 7, 2019 The 91st Academy Awards will take place on Feb. 24. Whether the Academy walks back its decision on categories in commercial breaks this time remains to be seen.  But surely, cutting major awards, disrespecting industry figures, and generating public backlash just to slash the event's characteristically long running time isn't worth it. 

Entertainment

Movies

President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE on Saturday said that he "would not be happy" if North Korea conducts another weapons test, adding that his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping would likely share that sentiment. "I would not be happy," Trump said in a CBS interview for Sunday's "Face the Nation." "If he does a nuclear test, I will not be happy. And I can tell you also I don't believe that the president of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either." When pressed on whether that such a weapons test would mean military action by the U.S., Trump responded, "I don't know. I mean, we'll see." Trump's comments came two days after he told Reuters in an interview that a "major, major conflict" between the U.S. and North Korea was possible, though he said he would prefer to resolve tensions in the region peacefully. Washington and Pyongyang have been locked in a bitter standoff in recent weeks, after the U.S. announced it would send a Navy strike group into the Sea of Japan near the Korean Peninsula in an effort to deter Pyongyang's aggression. That strike group arrived in the region on Saturday, according to reports, where it conducted a joint drill with Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force. But the reclusive regime denounced the move as an act of aggression and threatened a nuclear strike on the U.S. if provoked. The tensions have put U.S. allies in the region – notably South Korea and Japan – on high alert. North Korea has long faced international condemnation for its nuclear ambitions. But concerns have grown recently over the rapid pace of its missile tests, with analysts and experts believing it could be readying for its sixth nuclear test. North Korea launched what is believed to be a medium-range ballistic missile early on Saturday, but the weapon blew up shortly after takeoff. It was Pyongyang's second failed test in less than a month. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

International Relations

ABRAMS SAYS 'WE HAVE OPTIONS AND IT WOULD BE A MISTAKE FOR THE RUSSIANS TO THINK THEY HAVE A FREE HAND' IN VENEZUELA

Politics

Government

Oct 16 (Reuters) - CNO Financial Group Inc * CNO Financial Group amends and extends revolving credit facility * CNO Financial Group Inc - ‍amended $250 million senior unsecured revolver replaces current $150 million facility scheduled to mature May 19, 2019​ * CNO Financial Group-amended facility extends maturity date to Oct 13, 2022,provided $325 million senior notes due 2020 are refinanced prior to Nov 30, 2019​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Bangalore.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com)

Finance

Banking

The percentage of teenagers who are vaping has doubled in the past two years, according to new data released Wednesday, with 25 percent of high school seniors using an e-cigarette in the past month. The data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) also shows that 20 percent of 10th grade students vaped in the past month, up from 16 percent in 2018.  And 9 percent of 8th grade students have vaped in the past month, up from 6 percent in 2018.  NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow said the numbers show teen vaping is a "public health crisis." "These products introduce the highly addictive chemical nicotine to these young people and their developing brains, and I fear we are only beginning to learn the possible health risks and outcomes for youth," she said in a statement.  Youth vaping rates have been climbing since at least 2017, when 11 percent of high school seniors told researchers they had vaped in the past month.  Public health experts had expected teen vaping rates to increase in 2019 after seeing last year's shockingly high numbers.  Twenty-one percent of 12th graders said the same in 2018.  But this year's numbers show policymakers can't wait any longer to act, Volkow said.  “There has to be a policy that would make it much harder for teenagers to be introduced to vaping," she told The New York Times.  The Trump administration announced last week it would soon ban the sale of flavored e-cigarette products, arguing they are too appealing to kids.  Governors in New York and Michigan issued similar bans this week.  Rising vaping rates among teenagers come as federal health officials investigate a spate of vaping-related lung illnesses that are primarily affecting young people.  Most patients have said they vaped THC, but others have vaped nicotine. Officials have not yet identified a specific brand or product that has been tied to the illnesses but have warned against buying products from the black market. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating 380 possible or confirmed cases of the illness, and seven people have died.  View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Technology

Electronics

Wheat harvest in the Palouse (Image: Charles Knowles)A relatively small number of crops make up a lot of the world’s diet. But, as the world gets hotter, the places that we’re able to grow these crops is moving.A new study published in Nature Communications by researchers at the University of Birmingham looks into whether the places where we currently grow our staple crops—corn, wheat, and rice—will be able to keep growing these things into the next century. Given our steadily growing population, it’s not enough to merely keep up, though. We have to keep increasing the quantity of food we produce.So far, we’ve done a pretty good job of keeping pace with the increasing demand for food. The US alone has doubled the amount of food it grows in the last sixty years—and it did so despite using less farmland than it used to. But as the world gets hotter, the researchers found that the farm belts where stable crops grow are going to dry up or move to radically new locations. Image: Nature CommunicationsThe eastern US, which grows much of the world’s corn and wheat, is going to be hit hard over this century. Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of South America are also going to see falling crop yields. In the world’s northern latitudes, however, there is actually going to be a bump in production, as hotter temperatures either increase yields or make it possible to grow crops in areas where it was previously too cold. The researchers predicted that both central Russia and Canada would see significant gains.The rise of new agricultural regions, however, doesn’t exactly make up for the loss of others. Though temperature trends suggest that crop production in Canada and Russia could pick up, there’s a lot more than just temperature that go into building a successful farm belt. Working farms also require machinery, water, excellent pest management, and farmers with experience in both the area and the crops to run them. Building that up in new locations is going to take time and considerable resources. It’s possible that the areas currently growing staple crops could also find ways to increase growth despite hotter temperatures—with new varieties of corn and wheat, for instance—to help make up for the coming shortfall. Certainly, in the hotter and more crowded world of the future, we’re going to need all the food we can get.

Finance

Markets

In an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus, cities and states are implementing new restrictions, seemingly every hour. The most effective tool is for everyone to stay home, but that’s a tough ask, especially when you’re living with young kids. “We are fundamentally social animals, and it’s very difficult for us to maintain isolation,” says Dr. John Williams, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, in an email to Vox. But because kids tend to congregate, sneeze, cough, wipe their noses, hug, wrestle, and “put everything in their mouths,” says Crystal Watson, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, being social comes with added risk. The new guidelines for everyone of limiting social contact and keeping six feet away make sense as part of a general containment effort, but that calculation gets trickier when kids are involved, especially for parents who have to work. The main question in that case remains, “I have to stay in this house with them for how many days?” followed quickly by “What do I actually do with them?” Some options get eliminated as cities close down public services. No school. No libraries. No museums. No movies. But not everything can be locked to the public. And a lack of information has parents wondering: What exactly is safe? Frustratingly, there are no absolutes. Families have to weigh risks versus the demands of work and their children. With that in mind, here’s what some experts recommend. Can I take my kids outside to play? Yes. Everyone needs to get outside. Kids especially need fresh air and movement, and you don’t have to be restricted to your backyard. But Meghan McGinty, affiliate associate professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health, puts it like this: “Think parks, not playgrounds.” If the former has enough open space, it’s easier to maintain the six-foot distance. Bring your own bats, balls, and toys, and clean them after each visit. This helps establish a routine and minimize the spread of germs within the family. Can they use the playground equipment? It’s a tighter space and a higher risk. Kids move quickly. They touch a lot of surfaces, and it’s impossible to wipe down everything, McGinty says. Watson acknowledges it’s not always practical to keep toddlers away. For her, the bigger issue is numbers. If the equipment is crowded with kids, it’s not safe. Can I have a playdate for my kids? Williams suggests not to in an effort to maintain social distancing. But some families might need to share child care coverage, so again, it’s about limiting the numbers; a general guide is limit playdates to two to three other kids. The essential element is to have a closed social circle — play with the same children all the time. “Then you know the exposures,” Watson says. Outdoors is preferable, but, if the playdate has to be inside, it’s key to stress maintaining the six-foot distance, not to share food or drinks, to sneeze into your elbow, and, when anyone walks into the house, make sure they wash their hands before doing anything else. You also want to regularly clean high-touch areas, such as doorknobs, switches, remote controls, and handles, McGinty says. Can we see the grandparents? No. It’s difficult for young kids to not hug, kiss, and sit on their grandparents, McGinty says, and anyone over 60 years old and with a chronic medical condition is at higher risk. It’s not the time to visit and it’s not the time for them to be babysitting. Instead, the grandparents should stay indoors and minimize all contacts. They, along with people with an underlying medical condition, are the most susceptible and the people who need to be protected during this time. Can I hire a babysitter? Possibly, and it might be necessary for child care since some parents will have to leave the house to work. McGinty says that with colleges being let out, parents have a potential babysitter pool of students coming back early. In a perfect world you’d want someone with CPR certification and first aid knowledge, but at the very least ask if they have any symptoms or have been exposed to anyone with coronavirus symptoms. It wouldn’t hurt to do temperature checks (anyone with a fever above 100.4F, coughing, or shortness of breath should stay home, though remember the virus can spread before people show symptoms.) Bonus points for a sitter who has done 14 days of self isolation. Watson suggests asking sitters about their attitude toward coronavirus. If it’s at all casual or blasé, keep looking. Whomever you hire, you want to stress maintaining good hygiene. Can I do a quick errand with my children? While children might not be at increased risk running an errand, the purpose of social distancing is to protect those who are most vulnerable and to limit the severity of the pandemic. McGinty offers a basic question to help determine if you proceed. “Is it really necessary to do?” Overall, she adds that parents shouldn’t feel pressure to engage in any of the above scenarios, regardless of what friends and neighbors are doing or even what the current recommendation is. It’s fine to be more (but not less) restrictive. If it doesn’t seem right for your family, then that’s your answer. “Parents should do what they feel is necessary to protect their children,” she says. Steve Calechman has written on desalination systems and pasta water. He was a contributing editor for Men’s Health and his work has appeared in Happify, Harvard Heath, Fatherly, and Greater Good.

Other

Other

JAMARAT, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Two million Muslim pilgrims performed a symbolic stoning of the devil on Friday, the riskiest part of the annual haj pilgrimage where hundreds of people were killed in a crush two years ago. Saudi Arabia, which stakes its reputation on organizing the world’s largest annual Muslim gathering, has deployed more than 100,000 security forces and medics as well as modern technology including drones and fiber optics to ensure a safe pilgrimage. Under close supervision from Saudi authorities, pilgrims clad in white robes converged on Jamarat carrying pebbles to perform the ritual from a three-storey bridge erected to ease congestion. Group leaders carrying flags from their countries directed pilgrims into the building. Some of the faithful held umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, with temperatures surpassing 40 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) around midday. “This is the embodiment of the Prophets Ismail and Ibrahim (Abraham) fighting the devil,” said Egyptian pilgrim Mohammed al-Jawhiri, 56. “The ritual reveals the extent of the devil’s evil and his actions to destroy this world.” The 2015 incident killed nearly 800 people, according to Riyadh, when two large groups of pilgrims arrived together at a crossroads in Mina, a few kilometers east of Mecca, on their way to performing the stoning ritual. Counts by countries of repatriated bodies, however, showed over 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians. It was the worst disaster to strike haj for at least 25 years. The Saudi authorities redesigned the Jamarat area after two stampedes, in 2004 and 2006, killed hundreds of pilgrims, and the frequency of such disasters has greatly reduced as the government spent billions of dollars upgrading and expanding haj infrastructure and crowd control technology. Officials said they had prepared a strict timetable for pilgrims from various countries to follow in order to reduce congestion. Saudi Arabia said more than 2.3 million pilgrims, most of them from abroad, had arrived for the five-day ritual, a religious duty once in a lifetime for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey. They will continue the stoning ritual over the weekend and return to Mecca to pray at the Grand Mosque before completing the pilgrimage. Some 90,000 Iranians have returned to haj after boycotting last year amid a diplomatic rift between Tehran and Riyadh, which are both vying for power and influence in the region. In previous years, jostling to perform the stoning before returning to Mecca accounted for many of the stampedes and crushes that have afflicted haj. “Thanks to the latest construction, this time even small children, old men, women and the disabled are being accommodated,” said Abdelaziz al-Azmi from Kuwait. “As you see, there is no problem.” King Salman was in Mina on Friday, the first day of Eid al-Adha (feast of the sacrifice). He and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, welcomed well-wishers at a palace gathering attended by princes, clerics, military leaders and distinguished guests. Saudi authorities have urged pilgrims to set aside politics during the haj but violence in the Middle East, including wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and other global hotspots are sure to be on the minds of many. For a graphic on the Haj journey, click: here For a graphic on Haj stampedes, click: here Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Richard Balmforth

Terrorism

Violence

EditorsNote: Minor edits for style, clarity Collin Gillespie scored 24 points and No. 16 Villanova rallied from a 14-point deficit to defeat Creighton, 64-59, on Tuesday at Omaha, Neb. Saddiq Bey scored 11 points, Jermaine Samuels added 10 and freshman Jeremiah Robinson-Earl swept 14 rebounds as the Wildcats improved to 11-3 overall and 2-1 in the Big East. Christian Bishop led Creighton with 16 points and nine rebounds, but its 15-game home winning streak was snapped. The Bluejays (12-4, 1-2) had won their first 10 at home this season. Trailing 60-57, Denzel Mahoney had his shot blocked at the rim by Robinson-Earl with 1:33 left. On the Bluejays’ next possession, Mahoney missed a 3-pointer from the top of the key. After Robinson-Earl picked up his 14th rebound, the Wildcats were able to hold on. Villanova missed its first seven shots and fell behind 17-8 with 10:56 remaining in the first half. Marcus Zegarowski soon drove to the basket, and the Creighton advantage was 19-8. The Bluejays moved ahead 24-10 with 6:33 left, thanks to suffocating defense, especially on the perimeter. Villanova made a late push and trailed 31-25 before Mahoney had a chance at a three-point play with 3.5 seconds remaining. Mahoney missed the free throw, and the Bluejays led 33-25 at halftime. The Wildcats missed 16 of their 20 treys in the first half. Villanova came out aggressive in the second half with six straight points to cut the lead to 33-31. When Mitch Ballock drove the baseline around Samuels and made a tough layup, the Creighton lead was 45-37. Villanova freshman Justin Moore scored in the paint, and the deficit was 47-42 with 10:00 remaining. On Creighton’s next possession, Zegarowski was double-teamed and found Bishop for a dunk and a seven-point advantage. Villanova got within 52-48 after Gillespie hit a layup with 7:19 to go, but the junior guard appeared to injure his leg. Gillespie was able to remain in the game, but Villanova head coach Jay Wright was whistled for a technical foul, and Ty-Shon Alexander hit both free throws for a six-point lead. Gillespie later made a deep trey, and Villanova regained the lead, 55-54, with 3:41 left. Ballock then hit a 3-pointer, and Creighton went back ahead 57-55. —Field Level Media

Sports

Basketball

Beijing's threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on American soybeans is causing uneasiness in the farm belt ahead of the White House's expected decision Friday to announce new duties on hundreds of Chinese products. "I am nervous to think about the scenarios of what's going to happen if it does go into effect," said Heath Houck, a soybean farmer in Nokomis, Illinois. "In the last three to five years, with the depressed farming economy the way it is, it can certainly hamper us even further. It kind of scares me, to be honest." The U.S. exports about $14 billion worth of soybeans to China, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. China buys roughly half of the U.S. soybean exports, and roughly one in three rows of soybeans grown on the nation's farms goes to the world's second-largest economy, according to industry estimates. President Donald Trump met with trade advisors on Thursday, and the administration is expected to roll out a truncated list of Chinese products subject to duties, three sources told CNBC. Beijing previously vowed to retaliate against Trump imposing new tariffs on Chinese products. The lion's share of the U.S. agribusiness trade to China involves soybeans, which are grown in many farm states where Trump received strong support during the 2016 presidential election. Top soybean growing states include Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and the Dakotas. The American Soybean Association, which represents more than 300,000 soybean farmers, on Thursday was one of the ag-related associations that issued an "appeal to Congress" to help stop trade tariffs. Wheat and corn grower associations also supported the effort along with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. "After weeks of engaging with the Trump administration to gain insight into the future of trade tariffs, agriculture producers and related industries dependent on exports to China are turning to Congress for help," the agricultural groups said in a joint release. The announcement said retaliatory tariffs by Beijing "would not only directly affect America's producers, but also tangential industries that support agriculture," including farm machinery producers. Many growers of soybeans also plant corn, wheat and other crops. In April, Beijing threatened to slap the 25 percent tariff on the imports of U.S. soybeans. If that were to happen, it would raise the cost of American beans for Chinese buyers and make South American beans much more attractive. "The buyers of our soybeans are assuming the worst," said soybean farmer Kevin Scott in Valley Springs, South Dakota. "The markets are very soft right now. We've lost a dollar per bushel in the last couple of weeks, and it's been pretty frustrating as a farmer." Scott said he's already locked in his "mix" of corn versus soybeans so there's no turning back at this late stage. "Now we're quite a bit below our break-even price as far as cost of production," he said. Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures have fallen about 9 percent in the past two weeks, and July soybeans — the most active contract — settled at $9.2725 per bushel Thursday. The contract traded in the session at its lowest point since August 2017. "The market is worried that if we're having problems with China, the world's largest importer of soybeans and our biggest export customer, that it will cut into our export business and we're going to have more soybeans," said Ted Seifried, chief ag market strategist with Zaner Group, a Chicago-based futures brokerage. Seifried said the large commodity funds were long on soybeans as of two weeks ago but "have run for the door in a hurry and are now starting to get a little bit short, it seems." He said the outflow from the "speculative money" has contributed to soybeans being weak. Purdue University economists estimate Chinese soybean imports from the U.S. could plummet by as much as 65 percent if China imposes the tariffs. A study issued in March also indicated that besides U.S. economic well-being suffering from tariffs, the Chinese also would suffer. "We know China needs the product, and we would just assume they would buy it from us rather then switch to Brazilian soybeans," said Scott. The U.S. sold approximately 33 million tons of soybeans in 2017 to China, or nearly one-third of the beans imported by the Asian country. By comparison, Brazil shipped more than 50 million tons of soybeans last year to China and represented about 57 percent of the total imports. The number of cargo vessels waiting to load up with Brazilian soybeans has soared nearly 60 percent compared with a year ago, Reuters reported Thursday. China acquires about two-thirds of the world's soybean trade, using most of it for soy protein to feed roughly 700 million pigs in the country or to make cooking oil. Meantime, recent weakness in the Brazilian real currency has made the country's soybean crop more attractive. It also could encourage more Brazilian farmers to expand acreage of soybeans. "Brazil has currency advantage because the cheaper their currency gets, the more purchasing power other countries have," said Seifried. "It makes them more attractive on a global market."

Finance

Markets

July 25 (Reuters) - U.S. weapons maker Northrop Grumman on Wednesday topped Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit and raised its earnings forecast for 2018, led by sales of parts used in fighter jets as well as a lower tax rate. The company now expects annual earnings of $16.60 to $16.85 per share, compared with an earlier forecast of $16.20 to $16.45. Sales at Northrop’s aerospace business, which makes the center fuselage for fighter jets including Lockheed Martin’s F-35, climbed 11 percent to $3.34 billion in the second quarter ended June 30. Northrop, like U.S. peers Lockheed and Boeing, is benefiting from stronger global demand for weapons, fighter jets and tanks. The Falls Church, Virginia-based company is also expected to gain from an increase in U.S. defense spending under President Donald Trump’s administration. Northrop’s net income rose to $689 million or $3.93 per share in the second quarter, from $555 million or $3.16 per share a year earlier. Net sales climbed 10 percent to $7.12 billion. Analysts on average had expected earnings of $3.83 per share and revenue of $7.10 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. (Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)

Business

Markets

Editorial Facing a deadline to do away with a law that turned North Carolina into a national pariah by denying the right of transgender people to use public restrooms of their choice, state lawmakers rashly settled on a terrible compromise. On Thursday, they repealed the law in name but not in substance, hoping to assuage organizations and employers that have boycotted the state to protest its discriminatory law. The National Collegiate Athletic Association had given state politicians until Thursday to get rid of the law before it would resume holding championship games in the state. All those who have taken a principled stance against the law, known as H.B. 2, should stand firm. The law’s revision would deprive North Carolinians of protection from discrimination for years, and retains the odious notion that transgender people are inherently dangerous. “We can never compromise on fundamental civil rights,” William Barber II, the president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a call with journalists Thursday morning. “It was never just a bathroom bill. It’s a bill that discriminates against so many people in so many ways.” The original bill, which was signed into law in March 2016 by Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, was in retaliation to an ordinance the city of Charlotte approved weeks earlier barring discrimination against gays, lesbians and transgender people. Charlotte’s measure established that transgender people had a right to use public restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. The state law mandated that transgender people use restrooms that matched the gender marker listed on their birth certificate, and barred localities from enacting laws to protect gays, lesbians and transgender people from discrimination. It’s mystifying that Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat whose narrow election in November was seen as something of a referendum on H.B. 2, would regard the amended law as a suitable compromise. The repeal law did away with the birth certificate requirement, which was unenforceable all along because it would have turned law enforcement officials into genital inspectors. But it bars schools and other government entities from adopting policies allowing transgender people to use the restroom of their choice. And it still prohibits anti-discrimination ordinances until 2020. Mr. Cooper said the compromise with the Republican-controlled legislature was “not perfect,” but he held out hope that the repeal would start to “repair our reputation.” He and other Democrats who supported the compromise said they concluded that a modest step toward undoing the law was the best they could hope for while Republicans have veto-proof majorities in the legislature. That is misguided. The deal was struck days after The Associated Press reported that the backlash against the law would cost North Carolina at least $3.7 billion in business over 12 years. Getting employers and organizations to steer business and jobs to North Carolina should require more than window dressing. State officials must address the underlying problem: a law that enshrines discrimination against minorities and perpetuates harmful stereotypes about transgender people. Until they do, business as usual will represent an endorsement of bigotry and intolerance.

Legal

Civil Rights

La La Anthony didn't let her split from Carmelo Anthony keep her from spending her weekend in one of NYC's top strip clubs ... but this time, it was more business than pleasure. We've learned La La hit up Sapphire New York on Friday night -- but sources tell us she wasn't throwing around singles and partying it up, she was there to shoot footage for her new TV show. La La is a producer on a docu-series called "Goal Diggers" -- about women in risque industries (strippers and video girls) who break out and become mainstream businesswomen. We're told one of the women in the series works at Sapphire, so La La and some crew members hit up the club to shoot footage. It just so happened her good friend French Montana was there (he was there to party) -- so they kicked it together inside the building. We spoke with French in NYC on Monday who told us La La is doing so well since the split, he came up with a new nickname for her.

Names

People

U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump speaks at an event at Carrier HVAC plant in Indianapolis, Indiana. At a rally last week in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, WI, President-Elect Donald Trump promised that his administration will focus on “three words: jobs, jobs jobs.” Two of the focal points of his post-election campaign have been keeping US factory jobs, like at the Carrier furnace factory in Indiana, from moving to Mexico, as well as prioritizing American workers over foreign ones. In Milwaukee county, where factories employ almost 16% of the workforce, these kinds of promises are particularly popular with Trump’s supporters. But although Trump succeeded in convincing Carrier to keep its plant in the US with $7 million in tax breaks, the factory’s parent company has said it will invest $16 million into making the factory competitive through automation, which will ultimately cut human jobs. For the most part, Trump supporters at the rally didn’t seem to mind. They’ve known the automation of factory jobs was coming whether they liked it or not, they told BuzzFeed News. For some, that means that the president-elect has no obligation keep factory jobs safe from the machines that would streamline them out of existence. “I don't see any negative to innovation in automation. We're ready to get moving with the times,” said Jodi Perkins, a supporter living in Milwaukee. “He doesn’t need to protect those frontline jobs. We’ve got to get the boot of government off the neck of business.” Jodi Perkins, right, at Trump's Wisconsin Thank You rally Mel Geschke, a forklift operator with Quad/Graphics who attended the Milwaukee rally, said automation threatens his job daily. Automated guided vehicles can do the work of forklift operators, though Geschke believes they do not work as well as humans in fast-paced situations. Yet he feels ambivalent about whether Trump should protect his job. He said, “He'll do what he can to protect my job from automation, but in some cases you've got to go with the flow.” American manufacturing, by many measures, is succeeding even as the president-elect reiterates that America “is losing,” as he did at the Wisconsin rally. Mark Miro, a senior fellow at the Brookings research institute, writes in the MIT Technology Review that American manufacturing is now producing 254% of what it did in 1980 while employing just 66% of the workforce of that same year. Reverting manufacturing processes from machines to people would likely be bad for the bottom line of many businesses. The Boston Consulting Group found in 2015 that it costs only $8 per hour for a robot to do the same job — spot welding to produce cars — that a human could do for $25 per hour. Trump’s own labor secretary pick Andy Puzder has spoken publicly about preferring robots to human workers. Several supporters at the rally offered the consolation that workers who lost their jobs to automation could become repairmen or technicians in the same factories. Tim Kempen summed up a common feeling at the rally: “If we don't stay with new tech, we'll be less productive and fall behind other countries. It's sad that a machine may take jobs, but at least those people could go out and get jobs repairing the machines.” But to Michael Gallant, head of communications at n-Join, a company that uses artificial intelligence to monitor manufacturing machines for deficiencies, the comparison of frontline factory jobs to more specialized occupations does not hold up. “That’s not an apples to apples analogy. Becoming a technician or an engineer requires a great deal training, whereas frontline manufacturing does not.” And jobs for those without that training are fast disappearing. A recent Georgetown study found that of the 11.6 million jobs added after the economic crisis of 2008, workers with some degree of higher education took 11.5 million of them. Workers with a high school education lost 5.6 million jobs in the recession, the study said, and regained less than 1% of them because many of the jobs for high school graduates like manufacturing and clerical work have been automated. Tomas Jimenez, a sociologist of immigration at Stanford University, told BuzzFeed News Trump’s supporters’ ambivalence towards automation but enthusiastic support for the Carrier deal and his anti-illegal immigration agenda isn’t entirely surprising. “It’s easier to blame people than it is to blame things. It’s possible that among supporters there is a sentiment that machines have no agency, but people — Mexico and its emigrants — do.” “Our responsibility is more to look for companies that manufacture their wares in the US,” said Jodi Perkins at the rally. “It’s more important to keep jobs in the US than to protect them from automation.” Trump, for his part, hasn’t said much about the impact automation may have on his plans for the American economy. But in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times, the president-elect said the US would build more factories under his administration because “we don’t make anything.” He did, however, acknowledge that “robotics is becoming very big.” His solution? “We’ll build the robots, too.”

Politics

Government

Partisan trust in Congress has shifted in the past year, according to a new poll, with Democrats now saying they're more trusting of the legislative body and Republicans saying they’re less so.  The Gallup poll released Wednesday found 45 percent of Democrats said they are trusting of Congress, a 12-point increase since 2018.  The same poll found Republicans are less trusting of Congress than they were last year, with just 33 percent saying they’re trusting of the body, compared to 48 percent in 2018. ADVERTISEMENT <!--//--><![CDATA[// ><!-- googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display("dfp-ad-mosad_1");}); //--><!]]> The poll also found a less-severe drop among independents — 33 percent of independents now trust Congress, compared to 39 percent last year. The shift in trust comes as Democrats have gained control of the House. The Republicans maintained their majority in the Senate in last year's midterm elections.  The current 12-point gap between parties is wider than it historically has been when Congress has divided party control, Gallup noted.  The poll was conducted earlier this month, before Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiWhistleblower complaint declassified on eve of high-stakes testimony Ocasio-Cortez on impeachment: 'I think the ground has shifted' Democrats ask Pentagon to probe delayed Ukraine aid MORE (D-Calif.) announced the House would launch an official impeachment inquiry into President TrumpDonald John TrumpWhistleblower complaint declassified on eve of high-stakes testimony Ocasio-Cortez on impeachment: 'I think the ground has shifted' Democrats ask Pentagon to probe delayed Ukraine aid MORE amid allegations that Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe BidenJoe BidenWhistleblower complaint declassified on eve of high-stakes testimony Ocasio-Cortez on impeachment: 'I think the ground has shifted' Democrats ask Pentagon to probe delayed Ukraine aid MORE.  The poll of 1,525 adults was conducted Sept. 3–15, with 70 percent by cellphone and 30 percent by landline. The margin of error is 3 percentage points. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Government

STOCKHOLM, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Rare disease drug maker Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi) has topped its 2019 sales and core profit expectations. Sobi said late Thursday its earnings before interest, taxes, amortisation, restructuring costs and the impact of its acquisition of Dova Pharmaceuticals totalled 6.2-6.3 billion crowns ($653.4-663.9 million), beating the adjusted EBITA of 5.3-5.5 billion it forecast in October. Revenue of 14.15-14.25 billion beat a forecast of 13-13.5 billion. It said the improvement was partly due to significantly higher sales of Synagis, its respiratory syncytical virus (RSV) disease drug. $1 = 9.4889 Swedish crowns Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom, editing by Anna Ringstrom and Jason Neely

Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals

He spent three days trapped in a rock pool at the base of a jungle waterfall, after a fall that broke both his legs and shattered his knee. So it’s no surprise that actor Paul Nicholls feels “lucky to be alive.” The 38-year-old British actor — who rose to fame on the BBC soap EastEnders and had a role in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason — is recovering in a hospital, his rep confirmed to PEOPLE, after being rescued by locals on the Thai island of Kohn Samui. Nicholls was found in agony at the base of Khun Si falls on July 13, CBS News reported. He was semi-conscious with hypothermia and unable to move. “I am lucky to be alive,” he told The Sun. “It took such a long time to find me. It’s an understatement to say it wasn’t a great situation. It wasn’t that I was lost. The problem was I couldn’t move to get out of there.” “I had a phone with me but I fell from such a height into the water it was unretrievable,” he added. A search for Nicholls was launched after a sharp-eyed Thai local spotted his abandoned rental motorbike, The Guardian reported. Police then traced the bike to his real name, Gerrard Paul Greenhalgh, and set out to find him — with volunteer rescuers and medics joining the hunt. Emergency services took two hours to move him to International Koh Samui hospital, The Sun reported. Nicholls’ agent told the BBC that he was “recovering well” and would be flown back to the UK next week. His kneecap will need complete reconstruction. Since finding fame on EastEnders, Nicholls has appeared in a number of projects — including Law and Order UK, Casualty, and Ackley Bridge. His first TV appearance was at age 10 in the long-running television series Children’s Ward. In June, a 28-year-old American tourist named Geoffrey Maui died after falling at the same waterfall, Thai Visa News reported.

Other

Other

PARIS, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Below are company-related news and stories from French and Benelux media which could have an impact on the region’s markets or individual stocks. Third Point LLC, the U.S. hedge fund that has pushed for changes at companies ranging from Nestle SA to Campbell Soup Co, has amassed a stake in Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica SA, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday. Iran’s foreign minister made a flying visit for talks with host France at the G7 summit on Sunday, as Paris ramped up efforts to ease tensions between Tehran and Washington, a dramatic diplomatic move that the White House said had surprised them. Pan-European market data: European Equities speed guide................... FTSE Eurotop 300 index.............................. DJ STOXX index...................................... Top 10 STOXX sectors........................... Top 10 EUROSTOXX sectors...................... Top 10 Eurotop 300 sectors..................... Top 25 European pct gainers....................... Top 25 European pct losers........................ Main stock markets: Dow Jones............... Wall Street report ..... Nikkei 225............. Tokyo report............ FTSE 100............... London report........... Xetra DAX............. Frankfurt items......... CAC-40................. Paris items............ World Indices..................................... Reuters survey of world bourse outlook......... European Asset Allocation........................ Reuters News at a glance: Top News............. Equities.............. Main oil report........... Main currency report.....

Politics

French Politics

(CNN)It's been a week of dizzying coronavirus developments in the United States, with fear growing as deaths skyrocketed within days from one to 14 people nationwide. There are now 228 confirmed cases in the United States alone, and that may go up as testing becomes more accessible. Here are the key things we've learned this week: The number of affected states is growing The confirmed coronavirus cases are spread over 19 states. Washington state has the largest number at 70 confirmed cases, including 13 deaths. California has 49 infections, including one fatality. New York has 22 positive cases; Illinois has five; Texas and Florida both have four, and the remaining states have three or fewer cases. In New York alone, more than 2,500 people have been ordered to self-quarantine as health officials search for anyone who may have been exposed to the virus. A cruise ship with 3,500 people is in limbo at sea A cruise ship in limbo off the California coast with about 3,500 people aboard will get results from dozens of coronavirus tests Friday. The California Air National Guard dropped off test kits by helicopter Thursday after learning that the first person to die of the virus in the state previously traveled on the Grand Princess. Medical officials collected samples for testing from 45 people aboard. The Grand Princess was on a two-week trip from San Francisco to Hawaii and was scheduled to return Saturday. The California man's death was the first fatality outside Washington state. He took a cruise from San Francisco to Mexico on the same ship last month. A frantic search for answers at a nursing home Family members cut off from loved ones inside a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, are searching for information after the outbreak killed several people there. At a press conference outside the nursing home, some relatives said their loved ones died without knowing whether the virus was responsible. Pat Herrick -- who first expressed concerns to CNN on Tuesday about the situation at the nursing home -- says her mother, Elaine, died Thursday morning after living at Life Care Center for seven years. Hundreds are denied entry into the US Homeland Security denied US entry to 241 people because of the coronavirus. The figures were recorded within the past month, and did not include a country breakdown for those refused entry at the airports. An additional 106 foreigners were denied entry before arriving in the US at preclearance airports, where customs officials conduct screening overseas. In February, the United States started implementing stringent travel restrictions to contain the outbreak Congress approves billions to fight outbreak The Senate approved a sweeping spending package to direct $8.3 billion toward the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak. The package now goes to the White House for the President's signature. It passed the House with broad, bipartisan support. It provides $7.8 billion in appropriations to address the outbreak of coronavirus as well as $500 million to fund a telehealth program to expand senior access to health services -- a total of $8.3 billion in all. The US does not have enough testing kits Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the administration's response to the outbreak, admitted the available testing kits are not enough to meet demand after new guidance made testing accessible to patients with only a doctor's order. Experts have questioned whether the United States can meet the likely surge in testing demand that will follow the change in guidelines. Between CDC tests and those from a private company, IDT, there will be a nationwide capacity to test 475,000 people by the end of the week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said. He said he hopes IDT will ramp up production of kits to be able to test about a million and a half people by the end of next week. Global experts warn this is 'not a drill' The World Health Organization is warning governments that the global spread of the coronavirus is "not a drill" and will require significant steps to contain. The call to action comes as the global number of people infected by the virus nears 100,000 -- a grim milestone that appears inevitable with small clusters of cases expanding in South Korea, Japan, parts of Europe, Iran and the United States.

Travel

Cruises

TL;DR: All sorts of Keurig coffee machines are on sale at Target, Walmart, and Amazon ahead of Black Friday, saving you as much as 50%. A strong cup of coffee (or five) is an important part of every Black Friday shop-a-thon — after all, those early-bird deals and doorbusters wait for no one. It's do or die out there, dammit, and you need to be wide awake for this thing. If you happen to need a new coffee maker to ensure you stay caffeinated on the big day, your timing is excellent: Walmart, Target, and Amazon are all offering deals on quick-brewing Keurig coffee machines this weekend as part of their pre-holiday sales.  That being said, we know you don't have the time to go through each retailer's promotions individually — you're way too busy figuring out the rest of your Black Friday game plan. That's why we've gone ahead and done the work for you. Keep reading to find out where you can land the best deals on Keurigs ahead of Nov. 29. (Spoiler: Target is coming in hot.🔥) Details: This single-serve K-Cup coffee maker features three different brew sizes and comes in two colors (black and rhubarb). Where to buy it: Walmart, Amazon, and Target all have this Keurig on sale right now, but it's cheapest at Amazon and Target. Add it to your shopping cart on either retailer's website to bring its price down to just $59.92 — that's half off. (Note: Target's sale on the K-Classic brewer is scheduled to last only through Saturday, Nov. 23, so if you want to put it on your RedCard, be sure to hustle.) Details: Available in three different colors, this brushed metal brewer can whip up hot or iced coffee in four different sizes. Where to buy it: The silver version of this Keurig is heavily discounted for the holidays across all three retailers, but for a limited time, Target's offering a pair of additional promotions that make its price the lowest of them all. (There's a Target.com sale on select coffee makers and accessories that automatically saves you an extra 15%, and if you join the Target Circle loyalty program, that stacks with an additional 20% markdown.) By placing your order before Friday, Nov. 22 at 11:59 p.m. PST, you'll save 48% total and get the K-Elite for a mere $88.39. Details: Capable of brewing both single cups and entire carafes of coffee, this versatile coffee maker works with both K-Cups and regular grounds. Where to buy it: Target and Amazon both have this one on sale right now for $127.49 — a 25% savings — but Target's deal expires sooner (Nov. 23 at midnight). Details: This new addition to Keurig's brewer lineup is another 2-in-1 coffee maker that's essentially a slimmer version of the standard K-Duo with a single spout (instead of two) and a thermal carafe (instead of a glass one). Where to buy it: Target manages to beat Amazon's $70 markdown by throwing in a free $20 gift card on top of two separate discounts. (They're the same two deals the retailer is applying to the K-Elite: 15% as part of Target's coffee maker sale, plus an extra 20% off for Target Circle members.) Get it here for just $162.79 through Nov. 22 at midnight — a total savings of $67.20. Details: This itsy-bitsy brewer is perfect for small spaces and comes in three colors (matte black, oasis, and studio gray).  Where to buy it: Both Target and Amazon have the studio gray K-Mini on sale for just $54.39 — a 32% savings — with the former's sale ending at 11:59 p.m. PST on Saturday, Nov. 23. Details: This ~special edition~ machine can whip up coffeehouse-worthy drinks in a matter of minutes using your choice of milk and any K-Cup pod. Where to buy it: Amazon and Walmart currently have this bad boy on sale for about $20 off, but Bullseye will give it to you for $30 off *and* throw in a free $20 gift card if you order it from Target.com before midnight on Saturday, Nov 23. (Better luck next time, guys.) Get it here in a nickel finish for just $189.99. Details: Featuring a Strong Brew mode that increases your coffee's strength, this machine is ideal for coffee drinkers who prefer a brew that puts hair on their chests. Where to buy it: Target comes out on top yet again thanks to that 15% off sale on select coffee makers and a 30% off (!) promotion for Target Circle members. Through midnight on Nov. 22, you can get the matte black K-Select on Target.com for just $59.49 — a 54% savings.

Technology

E-commerce

Boone Jenner scored the go-ahead goal and the host Columbus Blue Jackets scored three third-period goals to get past the Detroit Red Wings 5-4 on Thursday. Alexandre Texier, Cam Atkinson, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Eric Robinson tallied the other goals for the Blue Jackets. Joonas Korpisalo had 22 saves. Tyler Bertuzzi scored twice and Filip Hronek and Luke Glendening collected the other goals for the Red Wings. Jimmy Howard made 32 saves. It was 1-1 after the first period. Texier scored his third goal of the season during a scramble in front of the net at 5:37. Bertuzzi wound up, waited and then finally fired away and scored Detroit’s first goal at 12:06. His shot past a screened Korpisalo just snuck inside the post. Early in the second period the Blue Jackets had a 5-on-3 advantage and Atkinson cashed in. Seth Jones passed the puck toward the post to Atkinson, who deposited it into a wide opening at 4:30. Detroit also had a 5-on-3 advantage during the period but didn’t get a shot off. But the Wings scored twice in 44 seconds in the final four minutes of the period. Hronek caught a break when he tried to pass the puck from the right circle to Robby Fabbri. It hit a defensemen’s skate and skittered into the net. Glendening scored the Wings’ second shorthanded goal in as many games. Frans Nielsen stole the puck and passed it to Glendening at center ice. He got ahead of the defense and backhanded the puck by Korpisalo, putting the Wings up 3-2 into the final period. With Fabbri in the penalty box for slashing, Bjorkstrand scored on a rebound from the slot at 7:40 of the third to tie the game. Jenner scored his sixth of the season from a tough angle along the right side just over a minute later to put Columbus on top. Bjorkstrand got the primary assist. The Blue Jackets took a two-goal lead at 13:49 after winning a faceoff in their own zone. Zach Werenski cleared the puck and Robinson found himself on a breakaway to notch his third goal this season. Bertuzzi tipped in a Dennis Cholowski shot to make it 5-4 at 16:46, but Columbus held on. —Field Level Media

Sports

Hockey

December 13, 2000: Every election is rigged if you ask the right people, but the 2000 contest was particularly ripe breeding ground for conspiracies. Al Gore concedes the contest a day after the 5–4 Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore put an end to a monthlong controversy over some contested ballots in Florida. With the country's highest court ruling that George W. Bush's victory in the state should stand, Gore doesn't have much of a choice, but he emphasizes in his concession speech that it was time to move on. "While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I do accept it," he says. "For the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession." In a sense, though, that election is still going on today. Gore's remarks didn't stop the left from pushing the idea that the election had been stolen—a lot of theories center on Jeb Bush, George's brother who was then the governor of Florida. To this day, you can sign Change.org petitions calling for the 2000 election to be investigated; when Gore showed up at a Clinton rally recently, the crowd broke out in a "you won!" chant. 2004: John Kerry loses the presidential election. Or does he? Just like four years earlier, some on the left advance the theory that a close contest was stolen from the Democrat. Theories about how voting machines in Ohio were rigged to give the state and its decisive electoral votes abound for a long time afterward, even showing up in Mother Jones in 2005. But Kerry himself never gives any credence to any of this; he concedes the morning after Election Day once it becomes clear he couldn't win Ohio. 2008: As the election approaches—a relative cakewalk where Barack Obama would trounce John McCain—Republicans in Ohio challenge a rule letting voters register and vote on the same day. This is part of a broad right-wing effort to make it more difficult to vote on the grounds that voter fraud is rampant—an effort, Democrats say, that looks an awful lot like an excuse to intimidate and harass minorities, the poor, and students, all voting demographics that lean Democratic. Studies have found repeatedly that in-person voting fraud is extremely rare, but that doesn't matter. Allegations of voter fraud (often racially tinged) will be constant for the next eight years. 2012: Obama wins reelection pretty handily, but some on the right have questions about the areas in Philadelphia where Mitt Romney got zero votes. "Odd? Romney Got ZERO Votes In 59 Precincts in Philly, and 9 Precincts in Ohio" read one headline on conservative news site the Blaze. But it wasn't that odd—the 50 divisions (not precincts) in Philadelphia who went unanimously for Obama were Democratic strongholds, as were those Ohio areas. And, for his part, Romney himself carried some Utah precincts unanimously. The notion that these results indicate something fishy persists, though, and local Philadelphia Republican Party officials took time to debunk this idea recently. OK, time to flash forward, but you get the gist: A lot of people complain when their candidate loses, some of that complaining edges into conspiracy-theory territory, but candidates themselves don't traffic in any of this. The US has a long, pretty dang impressive history of peacefully transferring power from party to party, and a big part of that is that party leaders have always accepted election results and refused to even hint that the system screwed them over—even, as in Gore's case, when they would have had a decent case. Then... April 2016: Trump complains about the Republican primary rules in some states that led to Ted Cruz, his main rival, winning all of Colorado's delegates. "The system is rigged, it's crooked," Trump says on FOX News. Despite his sour grapes, Trump is actually winning and benefitted in earlier primaries from some GOP rules. Summer 2016: On the other side of the political spectrum, Bernie Sanders supporters complain of various ways that they feel Hillary Clinton is stealing the primary. Among their most serious complaints are that a purge of the voter rolls in New York was intended to disenfranchise Sanders supporters, Arizona's disorganized primary benefitted Clinton, and that Sanders actually won California. Though later evidence would show that officials at the Democratic National Committee were pro-Clinton—and the whole process undoubtedly favors Establishment candidates like Clinton—these wilder theories seem to be just wishful thinking. Sanders doesn't sign on to these conspiracy narratives. In early May, he says the primaries were a "rigged system" because of unelected superdelegates, but later that month he backtracks and just called some rules "dumb"—again, an example of a leader refusing to engage in his followers' wilder notions. During the Democratic convention, though some angry Sanders delegates would walk out, Sanders (and most of his supporters) remain firmly behind Clinton, dumb rules and all. Donald Trump loves all of this: Bernie Sanders is being treated very badly by the Dems. The system is rigged against him. He should run as an independent! Run Bernie, run. August 1: Trump has been throwing around the word "rigged" to explain everything from Sanders's defeat to Clinton not getting charged with any crime over her private email server. But this day marks the first time he throws out the R-word when it comes to the general election. "I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest," he says in front of a crowd in Ohio, before going on FOX News to tell Sean Hannity, "I hope the Republicans are watching closely, or it's going to be taken away from us." It's worth nothing that at the time Trump's polling numbers were in a nosedive following an ugly public spat with the parents of a dead Muslim soldier. August 2: In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump links up his criticism of the election with the mainstream Republican notion of the voter fraud epidemic. "The voter ID situation has turned out to be a very unfair development," he says, apparently referencing a recent court decision against a voter ID law. "We may have people vote ten times." August 19: A poll finds that a majority of Trump supporters aren't very confident that their votes will be counted accurately, backing up anecdotal evidence from his rallies that Trump's fans see themselves as being in opposition to a vague but extremely powerful Establishment. That view dovetails with the us-against-the-world message Trump has been pushing since the primaries, so no surprise there. August 23: A civil rights group asks international election monitors to watch the US contest closely in response to Trump's rhetoric about how his supporters need to make sure people in "certain areas" aren't committing fraud. When people sign up on Trump's website to be poll watchers—a routine function by campaign volunteers—they get an email that says, ominously, "We are going to do everything we are legally allowed to do to stop crooked Hillary from rigging this election," according to NBC News. September 7: A poll of Florida voters finds that 75 percent of Trump supporters think that if he loses, it'll be because of fraud. September 26: During the first presidential debate, Trump says that he'll "absolutely" accept the results of the election, even if he loses. September 30: Trump changes his mind, I guess, because in an interview with the New York Times, he says, "We're going to have to see" if he would accept the results of the election. Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system! Early October: In the wake of the scandal over the tape of Trump saying he could grab women "by the pussy" because he is famous, the GOP candidate starts throwing around accusations that the media is biased against him for supposedly focusing more on the allegations of sexual misconduct against him than on the Clinton campaign emails released by WikiLeaks. But his "rigged system" rhetoric—repeated in tweets and at rallies—goes way past a candidate whining about the media's mistreatment: Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail. Instead she is running for president in what looks like a rigged election As the election gets closer, Trump's repeated assertions that the election is rigged are notable because he's complaining about a crime before it happens, and because he's putting what would normally be a fringe view at the center of the campaign. Candidates never ever do this sort of thing, because it's seen, rightly, as a rejection of 200 years of American democracy. October 15: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan tells Buzzfeed, "Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity," more or less directly contradicting Trump. October 16: Trump surrogates go on television to defend their man. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich calls the election a "coup d'etat" by the news media against ordinary people, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani says that "dead people generally vote for Democrats" and voter fraud is bad for Republicans because "they don't control inner cities the way Democrats do." Also on October 16: Mike Pence, Trump's running mate, missed a meeting or something because he goes on Meet the Press and says, "We will absolutely accept the result of the election." October 17: Kellyanne Conway, who missed the same meeting Pence did, talks to CNN and, when asked about what Trump means by "rigged," replies, "Anybody who reads the newspaper online or in print or has a remote control probably has recognized that in many ways, the fix is in for Mrs. Clinton when it comes to the mainstream media." But wait, back up a second to October 16: The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary - but also at many polling places - SAD And then, back to October 17, literally just hours after Trump's own campaign manager is like, Oh, he's just talking about the unfair media: Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive! Finally, just hours ago: The latest poll on the subject shows that four in ten voters—and 73 percent of Republicans—think that the election could be "stolen" from Trump. Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

Politics

Election

New Delhi (CNN)After a controversy-mired seven days in India, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally received an all-important hug. Arriving at an official reception in New Delhi Friday, Trudeau was at last met by his Indian counterpart Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who clasped the Canadian leader in his arms. Following bilateral talks, the two leaders appeared side-by-side at a press conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Indian presidential palace, Friday afternoon. Trudeau, who leaves India Saturday, reiterated the two countries rich shared history and natural kinship. Discussing the possibility of expanding trade links, Trudeau described India as "a natural partner and a trusted friend for commercial cooperation." Modi, too, appeared to underscore the links between the two countries. "India has attached a high importance to pursuing its strategic partnership with Canada. Our ties are based on democracy, pluralism, the supremacy of law and the mutual interaction." Trudeau's India trip has been at times overshadowed by a series of poorly-judged missteps and unfortunate headlines, including the suggestion he had been deliberately "snubbed" by Modi over the Canadian government's alleged indulgence of Sikh separatists. The fact that the two leaders didn't meet -- and hug -- until seven days into the trip, has played in stark contrast with the recent visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who just last month was greeted with a trademark bear hug by Modi immediately upon landing in Delhi. Other recipients of Modi's exuberant embrace include current and former US presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama. Addressing the issue of extremism during the press conference, Modi said terrorism was a "threat to countries like ours and to fight these elements it is important for us to come together." Modi's comments follow revelations Thursday that a militant Sikh separatist convicted of attempting to murder an Indian politician in Canada had been invited to dine with Trudeau at the Canadian High Commissioner's residence in New Delhi. The official invitation, which was later rescinded, stirred outrage in parts of India, where the issue of Sikh separatism remains a highly charged and emotive topic. Though he didn't reference Sikh separatism by name, Modi added that "there should be no space for those who seek to divide communities and promote separatism. We will not tolerate those who challenge unity and integrity of our countries." Separatism returns The relatively obscure issue of Sikh separatism has dogged Trudeau throughout the week-long trip. Canada is home to about 468,000 Sikhs, comprising 1.4% of its population. A small but influential number of those Sikhs support the idea of Khalistan, or the demand for a separate state for Indian Sikhs. The separatist issue goes back decades in India, with one of the most important clashes occurring in 1984 when Indian Army soldiers stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhs' holiest site, in an effort to capture separatist leaders. In retaliation, India's then-leader, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards. According to official figures, the resulting anti-Sikh riots saw 2,733 people killed in the Indian capital alone. Human rights activists say the death toll was significantly higher. In 1985, the violence spilled over into Canada, when Sikh separatists bombed an Air India plane that had taken off from Toronto airport, killing all 329 people aboard, including numerous Canadians of Indian descent. The only person who was convicted in the bombing was released in 2017 by Canadian courts after two decades in jail. An armed Sikh rebellion operated in Punjab, the heartland of the faith, from the 1980s to the early 1990s, when it was crushed. Today the majority of support comes from the Sikh diaspora, especially in Canada. Trudeau has actively courted the Sikh vote, previously proclaiming that his cabinet has more Sikhs than Modi's. Analysts say a particular area of contention during Trudeau's India visit, was his appearance at a Sikh event in Toronto last year, where separatist flags and posters depicting an extremist Sikh leader killed in the 1984 Indian Army operation were displayed. Speaking to CNN Tuesday, India's former ambassador to Canada Vishnu Prakash said Sikh separatism was a matter of greater concern inside India than in Canada. "It goes to the core of India's unity and integrity and that is an issue that needs to be sorted out between the two countries (Canada and India)," said Prakash, who described the event Trudeau attended in Toronto last year as "an out and out Khalistani platform."

Politics

India

Since the TV premiere of “The Weekly,” we’ve introduced you to college-bound Louisiana students betrayed by their high school principal, a U.S. Marine fighting to take back his online identity from internet scammers and the youngest known child to be separated from his family at the U.S.-Mexico border by the Trump administration. For more news on the topics we’ve covered on the show, and updates on some of the people you’ve met on “The Weekly,” follow us at @theweekly on Twitter and Instagram. Channels: SBS, SBS Viceland and SBS OnDemandTime: Mondays at 10:25 p.m. Channel: AMC IberiaTime: Tuesdays at 23:00 We’ll update this list, when “The Weekly” becomes available in more countries.

Other

Other

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is asking its citizens to help decide on a fairer tax regime for large digital corporations that may include a tax on their global profits. Firms such as Amazon Google and Facebook have often been accused of paying too little tax within the bloc by establishing their regional headquarters in low-tax countries such as Luxembourg and Ireland. The executive European Commission has said it will make binding legislative proposals for a fair taxation of the digital economy by March. In a public consultation published on Thursday, it listed new ideas on what such a blueprint might contain. It is seeking responses on a “unitary tax” that would be levied on a share of digital companies’ global profits, divided up between the EU countries where they operate. This option has never appeared in EU documents before. It would be a long-term solution, as would a proposed tax using the corporate rate of the countries where the firms’ consumers are, rather than where the firms are based. That would eliminate the incentive for multinationals to set their EU headquarters in low-tax states. The commission also sought reactions to the idea of changing the principle of corporate establishment, so that companies could be taxed when they have a “digital” presence in a country. That was an option listed in a document published in September. Acknowledging that these proposals would take time to be applied, “the Commission believes that a two-step approach might be needed,” the document said. In the short term, EU states could impose a tax on revenues from “digital activities” or services, like the sale of online ads, the document said. They could also consider a withholding tax on digital payments or a “digital transaction tax” levied on companies selling consumers’ personal data, like Google or Facebook. The document offers respondents the possibility of proposing alternative measures. The public consultation will run until Jan. 3. “EU citizens, businesses and organizations interested in the evolution of the digital economy are welcome to contribute,” the Commission said. The move is set to gauge public support for an initiative that is backed by the EU’s big states but opposed by smaller, low-tax countries who fear losing revenues. Tax reforms require the unanimous backing of all 28 EU states to be adopted, although European rules offer chances to strip countries of their veto powers in cases of market distortion, an option that has so far never been tested. Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; editing by John Stonestreet

Politics

International Relations

SAO PAULO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Helena had been struggling to provide for her six-year-old son in Africa’s island nation of Sao Tome and Principe when she was offered an opportunity: a job as a cook in Brazil. She arrived in February 2018 hoping for a new life, but was forced to swallow cocaine to smuggle to Africa, arrested at Brazil’s busiest airport, Guarulhos International, and sentenced to five years in jail. “I felt like everything was over for me,” said 26-year-old Helena, who declined to give her real name for fear of repercussions, clutching her handbag containing a legal document stating she had been freed from jail to prevent her re-arrest. “You feel like the worst criminal in the world. ‘What does garbage like you come here for? Why not stay in your own country?’ they told me. I wanted to respond, but since they were police, I kept quiet,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. While modern-day slaves in Brazil usually raise cattle, harvest coffee and log timber, authorities see exploitation for drug trafficking as a growing problem with an influx of poor migrants from neighboring Venezuela and Bolivia. Women make up about half of some 300 drug mules arrested each year at Guarulhos International in Sao Paulo - Brazil’s biggest city and financial center - according to police data. Helena is one of dozens of migrant women in Brazil that Instituto Terra, Trabalho e Cidadania (ITTC), a local charity, believes were unfairly jailed for drug-trafficking as they were human trafficking victims who were forced to commit the crime. It is a link that Brazil promised to study in its 2018 plan to combat human trafficking, after introducing tougher penalties for the crime in 2016. The ITTC estimates that 12% of 365 drug-smuggling migrant women it has assisted since 2016 may be human trafficking victims, rather than criminals, who could be freed if they won an appeal. South Africa was the most common nationality of potential victims, followed by Venezuela and Bolivia. The real numbers are probably higher, and likely to grow due to an uptick in vulnerable immigrants, according to the ITTC, which helps jailed women contact their families and connects them with shelters upon release. “As conditions in neighboring countries worsen, for example in Venezuela ... the trend is for (human trafficking) to grow,” said Carolina Vieira, a lawyer for ITTC, who helps women freed from jail get key legal documents like social security cards. Brazilian sweatshops have long been a magnet for workers from poorer Latin American countries as higher salaries allow migrants to support families back home - and numbers have soared with Venezuela’s political and economic crisis. Some 5,000 people have been arrested for drug trafficking in Brazil’s airports in the last 10 years, according to data obtained by O Globo newspaper via the Access to Information Law. Sentences generally range from five to 15 years in jail. Dozens of women - like Helena - were coerced to smuggle drugs after being lured to Brazil with false job promises, only to be held in apartments on arrival, with their passports taken away, ITTC experts and public defenders said. Some women agreed to carry drugs after threats were made against them or their families, while others thought they were transporting sweets or shoes, only to find that the luggage they were given had drugs hidden in the lining, said ITTC’s Vieira. While human trafficking victims have the right to an acquittal if they are forced to commit a crime, legal experts said it can be hard to prove the element of coercion. “For a judge to understand that there has been human trafficking, they need a very clear cut case,” said Nara Rivitti, a public defender who represents jailed migrant women. “It’s very hard to produce evidence (of human trafficking).” Amanda’s story falls into this grey area. She originally agreed to smuggle drugs from her home country of South Africa to Brazil and back in 2013 in exchange for a passport. She thought it was a one-time deal, so when she was ordered to do it again, she refused. Then she was kidnapped. “They took me to some other place, and all six of them raped me,” said Amanda, who declined to give her real name. “From that point on, I just continued with the whole thing. They told me this was nothing compared to what would happen to me if I got out.” For two years, she transported drugs in her luggage or strapped to her body and boarded planes, driven on by threats against her family. But custom officials became suspicious as the number of stamps on her passport grew. In 2015, she was caught at Guarulhos - and thanked the officer who arrested her. “I was really relieved,” said Amanda, who was freed in 2018 after serving two years and eight months - just under half her sentence. Amanda fears she would be killed if she returned to South Africa and does odd jobs in Brazil. Foreigners who are convicted should be deported after their release, but due to lack of government funds to pay for tickets, expulsions are rarely carried out, said Joao Chaves, a public defender who specializes in migration. The most common outcome is a life in limbo - they stay in Brazil without the legal right to do so, which limits their access to jobs, healthcare and housing, he said. “They become a ‘legal zombie’,” he said. “They have been legally expelled from the country, but are still here physically.” Helena from Sao Tome and Principe was freed several months ago, after serving 17 months, and works as a waitress. She cannot cannot afford the 3,000 reais ($720) it would take to fly home, so she is hoping to be deported. Helena’s family had no idea where she was for more than a year after her arrest, until the ITTC called them with the news. “I had vanished,” she said, adding that her father died soon after she spoke to him - using another inmate’s smuggled phone - from a stroke she believes was caused by the trauma. “I want to go back, see my son and my mother. I have never been apart from my family for this long.” Reporting by Fabio Teixeira; Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit www.trust.org

Politics

Government

Washington (CNN)Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs serving in the Iraq War, on Thursday ripped into the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who has accused Democrats of being "in love with terrorists." In an interview Wednesday on Fox News, Republican Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia also claimed, without evidence, that members of the Democratic Party mourn the recent death of top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani more than they do fallen US service members. No congressional Democrat has mourned Soleimani, whom US officials have blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Americans. "I'm not going to dignify that with a response. I left parts of my body in Iraq fighting terrorists," Duckworth told CNN's Brianna Keilar on "CNN Right Now." "I don't need to justify myself to anyone." Asked by Keilar what she thought about Collins suggesting members of her party mourn Soleimani more than fallen service members, Duckworth replied: "I'm disgusted. I would never, ever use Gold Star families, military men and women, or their families, as any pawn in any political game." The comments from Duckworth come a week after the US killed Soleimani in a drone strike, sharply escalating tensions between the longtime adversaries. Responding earlier this week to the strike, Iran fired a number of missiles aimed at nearby US bases. Trump on Wednesday signaled a de-escalation of tensions with the country, saying at the White House that the country "appears to be standing down" following the missile strikes. "No, I am not sad that this man is dead. I am glad that he's gone to meet his maker," Duckworth said on Thursday. "But at the end of the day, because of the poor handling by the White House and the consequences of their actions ... American forces are now under greater danger of attack from Iran and other hostile forces in the Middle East." The comments by Collins also drew rebuke on social media, including from Eric Columbus, a former senior official in the Obama Justice Department who pointed out that the congressman supports the President despite the fact that in 2016, Trump sparred with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son died in Iraq in 2004, in a contentious back-and-forth.

Politics

Government

Helping to protect the planet by promoting sustainability can also be good for your bottom line. Many eco-friendly, or green, jobs are expected to grow over the next decade, according to an April 2019 report from The Bureau of Labor Statistics, and many of them pay well, too. Here are four green jobs with high median annual wages in 2018 that will also, BLS predicts, see "rapid employment growth." After environmental engineers develop devices used to clean up pollution, technicians step in to put them to work. It's also typical for technicians to test, operate, and modify that equipment while analyzing soil or groundwater samples. Although that may include disposing lead, asbestos, and other hazardous material, according to the BLS. On the plus side, an associate degree is all that's needed to enter the field. Broadly speaking, environmental scientists and specialists look at the way humans impact the earth. That means they seek out solutions to environmental problems often caused by hazards or pollutants, like contaminated air or water supplies. They also consult on new developments and construction, providing their expertise to identify if and how a new project poses a threat to the environment, according to the BLS. Hydrologists analyze how the movement of water influences the environment. Hydrologists spend time in the field collecting water and soil samples to test pH or pollution levels, and that may require hiking for long distances while carrying necessary equipment, according to the BLS. Some hydrologists begin their careers with a master's degree. Advanced researchers typically need a Ph.D. Atmospheric scientists study the weather and climate to develop forecasts and tools to collect weather data and advise clients on weather-related risks. Green jobs will indeed likely boom over the next decade, agrees Thorpe. And they can also serve as great opportunities for job-seekers: "A lot of us tend to have an altruistic desire to help others do good, and [green jobs] are a way of satisfying that desire while making a living." Get the Grow Newsletter Every Week Weekly money news and advice to grow your wealth, delivered straight to your inbox. Weekly money news and advice to grow your wealth, delivered straight to your inbox. Enter a valid email Subscribe

Other

Other

Aug 22 (Reuters) - Cementos Pacasmayo SAA * Cementos Pacasmayo announces plan to separate cement operation and phosphate holdings into two independent public companies * Company’s ownership of Fosfatos Del Pacifico will be transferred to a separate entity, Fossal * Proposed corporate reorganization is tax-free * Fossal will in turn own 70% of Fospac * For each common share of co existing shareholders to receive about 0.20 common share of Fossal & about 0.80 common share of co * Fossal will retain same directors and CEO Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

Technology

Internet

(The following statement was released by the rating agency) SINGAPORE/JAKARTA, October 14 (Fitch) Fitch Ratings has assigned Indonesia-based homebuilder PT Alam Sutera Realty Tbk's (ASRI, B+/Negative) proposed US dollar-denominated senior unsecured notes due in 2022 an expected rating of 'B+(EXP)' and a Recovery Rating of 'RR4'. The notes will be issued by ASRI's wholly owned subsidiary Alam Synergy Pte Ltd, and guaranteed by ASRI and its subsidiaries. The notes are rated at the same level as ASRI's senior unsecured rating as they represent the company's unconditional, unsecured and unsubordinated obligations. The final rating on the notes is contingent upon the receipt of final documents conforming to information already received. ASRI intends to use the net proceeds of the proposed notes to buy back its existing USD225m 9% senior unsecured notes, which are due in 2019. A successful issuance of the proposed notes will push back ASRI's earliest significant debt maturity to 2020, when its USD235m 6.95% senior unsecured notes fall due. The Negative Outlook on ASRI's 'B+' Long-Term Issuer Default Rating reflects the potential challenges it may face in improving contracted sales. The high proportion of commercial property sales and bulk land sales to institutional buyers in its pipeline has increased ASRI's business risk profile, but may be counterbalanced by a more conservative capital structure. Fitch may downgrade ASRI's ratings if the company cannot improve contracted sales to at least IDR3.5trn by end-2017 or if the ratio of contracted sales/gross debt remains lower than 0.6x. KEY RATING DRIVERS Weaker Sales Largely Cyclical: ASRI recorded IDR1.2trn of contracted sales in the eight months to August 2016, which was just 23% of its full-year target of IDR5trn; a similar performance to 2015. This was mostly due to a higher proportion of commercial property in the company's sales mix at a time of slower domestic economic activity and weak property demand. The company's inability to sell its office tower, The Tower, in Jakarta's central business district amid an office space glut is a key reason behind continued weak contracted sales. However, we expect better sales from this project in 2017 with improved domestic economic sentiment. Long-Term Credit-Profile Intact: ASRI's business risk is fundamentally unchanged, with a large low-cost land bank and established domestic franchise. The company had a land bank of over 19 million square meters (sqm) available for development, with a carrying value of over IDR8.6trn, at end-June 2016. Overall, we expect ASRI's contracted sales to improve to at least IDR3.5trn in 2017, supported by better domestic demand. Cash flows will also be driven by its agreement with China Fortune Land Development Co. Ltd (CFLD) to sell its land bank in the Pasar Kemis district in Tangerang, a region situated 30km west of Jakarta. ASRI received a deposit of IDR1.45trn in July 2016 as part of this agreement and is expected to sell around 1 million sqm of land to CFLD annually for the next five years. Improving Macroeconomic Sentiment: Domestic consumer sentiment has been improving since 2Q16, fuelled by lower commodity price volatility and a more stable exchange rate. The government's infrastructure expansion programme also had better traction compared with 2015 and its tax amnesty programme, announced in June 2016, has performed better than the government expected. The real estate industry directly benefits from any wealth repatriated as part of the programme, which has to be invested in either real estate or government securities. We expect increased domestic declarations of wealth to help more consumers purchase property, which had been put on hold following the government's increased scrutiny around tax evasion since 2015. Indicators of real economic activity, such as domestic traffic volumes and automobile sales, are also rising (see <a href="https://www.fitchratings.com/site/pr/1010932">"Fitch: Indonesia Economic Rebound to Spur Industrial-Land Demand", dated 29 August 2016). Execution Risks Remain: Fitch believes ASRI may find it challenging to sell 1 million sqm of land annually to CFLD. The cooperation agreement delineates 5 million sqm of land in Pasar Kemis. Fitch expects it to be difficult and costly to acquire the requisite land beyond the first two years. CFLD also has the right to set-off part of the land value purchased from ASRI against the advance payment, and ASRI will have to return the balance to CFLD if the agreement is terminated. Large Low-Cost Land Bank: The average cost of the company's land bank was IDR0.5m per sqm at end-June 2016. ASRI sold its residential land plots at an average price of IDR5m per sqm in 2015, and its commercial plots in its mature township of Alam Sutera fetched an average price of IDR23m. The company reduced incremental land purchases in 2015 to IDR409bn, from IDR1.3trn in 2014, to conserve cash amid weaker property sales. It expects to purchase between IDR1trn-1.3trn annually in 2017 and 2018. KEY ASSUMPTIONS Fitch's key assumptions within the rating case for ASRI include: - IDR1.4trn of contracted sales for 2016 and IDR3.5trn for 2017 - cash collections from contracted sales to be made over two to three years on average, in line with historical cash collections - contracted sales/gross debt ratio to improve to around 0.6x in 2017 (LTM to June 2016: 0.4x; 2015: 0.3x) - Net debt/adjusted inventory to remain less than 50% over the next three years (end-June 2016: 49%). RATING SENSITIVITIES Negative: Future developments that may individually or collectively lead to a downgrade include: - inability to improve annual contracted sales to at least IDR3.5trn by end-2017 - inability to improve contracted sales/gross debt to more than 0.6x by end-2017 - net debt/adjusted inventory sustained at more than 50% - higher spending on non-core businesses. Positive: Not meeting the negative rating sensitivities for an extended period may result in the Outlook being revised to Stable. LIQUIDITY ASRI's earliest significant debt maturity is in 2019, when the USD225m (around IDR3trn) five-year 9% senior unsecured bond falls due. ASRI has drawn a further IDR1.5trn of construction finance from banks as at end-June 2016, which it has used to complete its high-rise projects amid weak cash flows. Repayments of these loans are manageable, as they are spread across the next four to five years. Contacts: Primary Analyst Hasira De Silva, CFA Director +65 6796 7240 Fitch Ratings Singapore Pte Ltd 6 Temasek Boulevard 35-05 Suntec Tower Four Singapore 038986 Secondary Analyst Bernard Kie Analyst +62 21 2988 6815 Committee Chairperson Vicky Melbourne Senior Director +612 8256 0325 Date of Relevant Rating Committee: 10 October 2016 Summary of Financial Statement Adjustments - ASRI reports additions to land for development and advances made towards land purchases as cash flow from investments. Fitch has deducted these items from cash flow from investments and added these to working capital (as cash paid to suppliers), as Fitch treats these payments as working capital outflows. Media Relations: Leslie Tan, Singapore, Tel: +65 67 96 7234, Email: leslie.tan@fitchratings.com. 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Investment

Bonds

Inside a room at the rear of a well-kept Bronx apartment, Keziah Burton lay facedown on the bed, stabbed twice in the neck. Her nightgown had been pulled up to her waist. A blue telephone cord was wrapped around her right wrist. It was Jan. 3, 1989. Her son, Huwe Burton, then 16, said he found his mother murdered when he came home that evening, after having spent the day at school and then at his girlfriend’s house. But two days later, after detectives had interrogated him for hours, Mr. Burton confessed to the police that he had stabbed his mother while high on crack during an argument. Police arrested him for murder. Mr. Burton quickly recanted his statement, which was inconsistent with evidence at the scene. But a jury believed the confession and convicted him of murder. He served nearly 20 years in prison before being paroled in 2009. On Thursday, a state judge in the Bronx finally believed Mr. Burton’s claim that his confession was coerced and vacated his conviction. The judge, Steven L. Barrett, ruled after lawyers for the Innocence Project and the Bronx district attorney’s office brought forward new evidence that suggested someone else killed Ms. Burton, and that detectives had used psychologically coercive interrogation techniques to get Mr. Burton to give a false confession. Mr. Burton, 46, choked back tears as he walked to a podium at the center of the courtroom after the ruling. “It’s been a long, long journey and I’m thankful we’ve reached this point,” he said. “I stand here for that 16-year-old boy who didn’t have anyone to protect him, and the adults didn’t protect him at that time.” Justice Barrett expressed remorse. “Certainly it is a tragedy that Mr. Burton spent some 20 years in jail for a crime he did not commit,” Justice Barrett said. “For this I apologize on behalf of a system that failed him.” This was the fourth conviction to be vacated in the Bronx since Darcel D. Clark became the district attorney in 2016. Last year, two men had their convictions overturned in Manhattan after serving years in prison on bogus rape charges. After the hearing, Ms. Clark said Mr. Burton may not have been convicted on the same evidence today, given advances in interview techniques and evidence gathering. “Today his name has been cleared and now he can continue with the rest of his life,” she said at the Bronx County Hall of Justice. The exoneration followed a collaborative investigation started in 2016 by the Innocence Project and the Bronx district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit, led by Gina Mignola. Both parties filed a joint motion on Thursday asking Justice Barrett to reverse the conviction and dismiss the original indictment. Justice Barrett said he had presided over another homicide case in 1988 in which the same detectives who had elicited a false confession from Mr. Burton had coerced phony statements from two men, who implicated a third man in the murder. It later came out the third man was in jail at the time of the killing and could not have been involved. Justice Barrett said he dismissed the idea at the time that the confessions were erroneous. The case went to trial and a jury acquitted the men in an hour. On Thursday, he acknowledged his mistake in that case, and apologized for what Mr. Burton had experienced. Mr. Burton’s lawyers asked the Bronx district attorney’s office to participate in an audit of other cases handled by the detectives — Sgt. Frank Viggiano, Det. Stanley Schiffman and Det. Sevelie Jones — who are now retired from the police department but had served for decades. Efforts to reach the three retired officers were unsuccessful. Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that uses DNA evidence to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners, said the actions of the detectives in Mr. Burton’s case was reminiscent of Louis Scarcella, a Brooklyn detective who has been linked to several wrongful convictions. “When you have three false confessions within two-and-a-half months by the same set of detectives, it looks to me like Scarcella on steroids,” he said. Ms. Clark defended the detectives but said her office would still review other cases they had worked on. “What they did was not necessarily wrong — that is the way things were done then,” she said. “For 1989 that was standard practice for the N.Y.P.D., but now we know better.” The prosecutors who handled Mr. Burton’s case are no longer at the district attorney’s office, Ms. Clark said. According to court papers filed by prosecutors on Thursday, the detectives found no signs of forced entry or a struggle inside of the Burton’s Eastchester Road home. The contents of Ms. Burton’s purse had been dumped onto the living room floor, but the only property missing was the family’s Honda Accord and the keys to the car. No semen or DNA was found on Ms. Burton. There was no evidence she had been raped. Investigators suspected that the killer “was likely an insider” who had staged the crime scene, the papers said. Ms. Burton’s husband Raphael was in Jamaica at the time of the murder, and so detectives focused on her son. During an interrogation, the police led Mr. Burton to believe that if he confessed to killing his mother he would not be charged with statutory rape for having had consensual sex with his girlfriend, who was only 13 year old, the court papers said. The police also convinced him that if he confessed he would be taken to Family Court and his mother’s death would be treated as an accident. He was not told he faced serving time in state prison. Mr. Burton did not have a lawyer or relatives with him during the interrogation. Nearly a week after Mr. Burton’s confession, the police had stopped Emanuel Green, who was 26 and lived downstairs from the Burtons with his girlfriend. Mr. Green had run a red light in Mount Vernon while driving Ms. Burton’s car, which had been reported stolen after her murder. Questioned by detectives, Mr. Green said he had helped Mr. Burton cover up the murder, but denied participating. He claimed Mr. Burton admitted to him that he killed his mother during an argument over money, prosecutors said in the court papers. What the police did not know at the time was that Mr. Green had previously been convicted of rape, and of an attempted knife-point robbery. He was himself killed before Mr. Burton’s trial, the victim of a lover’s triangle. At the trial, the police portrayed Mr. Burton as a “callous, coldblooded murderer,” Susan Friedman, an attorney with the Innocence Project, told Justice Barrett. At the time, a videotaped confession was considered extremely powerful evidence. "No words can capture the pain and tragedy of this injustice,” Ms. Friedman said. Mr. Burton works for an elevator repair company these days and is preparing to run in the New York City Marathon this year. Standing outside of the courtroom, Mr. Burton tried to described the moment his conviction was thrown out. “It felt like a weight was officially lifted,” he said.

Crime

Murder

Opinion Once a leader in protecting the region’s vast forests, Brazil is now moving in the opposite direction. Deforestation in Maranhão State in northeastern Brazil. Brazil lost 2,682 square miles of Amazonian forests in 2017.CreditCreditLalo de Almeida for The New York Times Dr. Fearnside is an ecologist based in Brazil; Mr. Schiffman is an environmental journalist. The Trump administration is not the only government that has been busy slashing funds for environmental protection. Brazil has been doing the same. While Mr. Trump makes no bones about his desire to roll back environmental laws, Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, a signatory of the Paris climate agreement, has sent mixed signals. To his credit, Mr. Temer pledged in Paris to cut his country’s carbon dioxide emissions 37 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. His actions since then tell a different story. Last year, the Environment Ministry’s budget was cut nearly in half, as part of a national austerity plan amid Brazil’s punishing recession. And the agency responsible for protecting Brazil’s vast system of indigenous reserves is being virtually dismantled by draconian staff cuts. Funding for critical law enforcement to protect the rain forest from illegal timber cutting has also been decimated. In 2017, Brazil was the most dangerous country in the world for people defending the land or the environment, according to a tally by the group Global Witness, in collaboration with The Guardian newspaper. Forty-six people died. (The Pastoral Land Commission, a private advocacy group in Brazil for the rural poor, said at least 65 rural activists were murdered in disputes over development.) If the government’s retrenchment on environmental protection continues, there may soon be nothing to stop the chain saws on the Amazonian frontier, where the rule of law can be weak and land is frequently seized and cleared illegally. This has implications beyond Brazil. The Amazon’s lush forests make up the largest reserve of carbon dioxide on the surface of the earth. This potent greenhouse gas is released when forests are burned or bulldozed and left to decay. Brazilians are going to the polls on Oct. 7 to choose among nine candidates for the presidency, with a likely runoff later in the month between the top two vote-getters. The outcome will bear significantly on the future of the Amazon. The current front-runner, Jair Bolsonaro, is a climate-change skeptic who has been called “the tropical Trump.” He has threatened to take Brazil out of the Paris climate accord. Another of the leading contenders, the former São Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad, is regarded as a moderate on the environment. Marina Silva, who as Brazil’s environment minister pushed to limit deforestation and encourage sustainable development in the Amazon, is running well behind in the latest polls. Deforestation rates have been trending mostly upward since 2012 and will surely escalate if a raft of proposed laws and regulatory changes to weaken environmental protections are enacted. Brazil lost 2,682 square miles of Amazonian forests in 2017. That is almost nine times the size of New York City and 78 percent above the government’s own target for meetings its obligation under the Paris accord. In an analysis published in July in the journal Nature Climate Change, 10 Brazilian scientists concluded that “the abandonment of deforestation control policies and the political support for predatory agricultural practices” will make it impossible for Brazil to to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the level the country promised in Paris. Continued weak environmental governance, the scientists warned, could lead to the loss of up to 17,000 square miles of rain forest a year, endangering the entire Amazon ecosystem. Why this change in policy? The scientists put it succinctly: “In exchange for political support, the Brazilian government is signaling landholders to increase deforestation.” President Temer’s minister of justice is pushing plans to allow agribusiness to rent indigenous land that had been off limits to developers. Other proposals would effectively freeze the creation of new protected areas, open others to resource exploitation and block the mapping of boundaries of indigenous lands, potentially opening native communities and their forests to invasion by miners and ranchers. Indigenous territories contain more forest than all of the government’s conservation units combined, and historically Brazil’s native peoples have been far more effective in defending the rain forest than the government or private landowners. The anti-environment agenda is being pushed by of a coalition of large landowners and agribusinesses in Congress (the “bancada ruralista” or so-called ruralists). Regular revelations of corruption involving government ministers, legislators — and also, President Temer himself — have provided them with cover to pursue regressive measures, like a proposed constitutional amendment that would prevent Brazil’s regulators from blocking environmentally unsound road and development projects. Scores of such projects planned for inaccessible regions of the Amazon may be fast-tracked should the amendment pass and the environmental review process is gutted as a result, as now seems likely. For example, the 540-mile long BR-319 highway would, if completed, open a vast area in the central and northern Amazonia to deforestation. Not only is little being done to prevent illegal land use, some laws have encouraged it. Last year, the “grileiro” or land-grabber, law legalized tracts of nearly 6,200 acres that were taken illegally — a boon to land speculators and others who seize public lands for their own use. Not so long ago, Brazil was doing things right. Despite low global prices for soy and beef, the nation experienced a remarkable economic expansion while deforestation fell 60 percent from 2004 to 2007, demonstrating that environmental growth is consistent with economic growth. But now that demand for soy and beef on the global market is high, pressure on the forest is mounting. Deforestation is still well below historical highs. But that could soon change if the power of the agribusiness lobby is not checked. The ruralists came into increased prominence toward the end of the administration of the Workers Party president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and grew more powerful during the term of his successor, Dilma Rousseff. During Ms. Rousseff’s presidency, which ended when she was removed from office following impeachment, amnesty was granted to landowners who had illegally cleared forests, encouraging continued lawbreaking in the world’s largest rain forest. Climate change has also increased the danger of catastrophic forest fires. In dry El Niño years, burned areas can greatly exceed what is cleared for cattle pasture. The changing climate represents both a threat to the Amazon and a key reason for protecting its forests. Transpiration from tree leaves generates rivers of moisture in the atmosphere that act as conveyor belts bringing much-needed rain to Brazil’s heavily populated south and to Argentina. São Paulo, which already regularly runs dangerously short of water, will be a major victim if continued deforestation removes this water vapor transport that fills the reservoirs on which the city, South America’s largest, depends. The Amazon forest itself would also suffer. As more of it is cut, the huge volume of self-generated rainfall it needs to remain verdant is steadily reduced, worsening droughts made more frequent and severe by global warming. At some point — we are not sure how close we are to this critical tipping point — the entire ecosystem dries out. Brazilians have consistently said in opinion polls that they want to preserve the Amazon. But in the current atmosphere of unbridled greed and corruption in high places, the voices for wise policy are often drowned out. Brazil alone has not created the deforestation problem, and neither can it address it alone. Demand for Brazil’s beef from Western nations, and increasingly from China, has created an enormous temptation to cut the forest to turn a quick profit. Importing nations and Brazilian soy traders and beef producers must live up to their pledges that they will not buy products produced on cleared forest. And global financial institutions must stop funding projects that result in deforestation. They should also increase their assistance to Brazil and other tropical countries to help them maintain their forests and pursue nondestructive alternatives to cutting them. Only then, can we insure that the Amazonia forests, the living heart of Brazil — and of the world — will remain intact. Philip Fearnside is an ecologist at the National Institute for Research in Amazonia in Brazil. Richard Schiffman is an environmental journalist. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion).

Politics

Government

March 15 (Reuters) - Axas Holdings Co Ltd * Says co’s Tokushima-based unit plans to sell real estate property on April 5, at the price of 1.04 billion yen * Says gain from the sale will be 280 million yen Source text in Japanese: goo.gl/CZSNxs Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)

Technology

IT

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly said late Wednesday that Moscow is "ready" for another conflict with the U.S. similar to the Cuban missile crisis, but added that he does not relish the prospect. Putin told reporters that tensions with the U.S. are "not what we want," while seemingly warning adversaries of advances in Russian military technology, according to Reuters. “They (the tensions) are not a reason to ratchet up confrontation to the levels of the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s. In any case that’s not what we want,” said Putin, according to the news service. “If someone wants that, well OK they are welcome. I have set out today what that would mean. Let them count [the missile flight times].” “It’s their right to think how they want. But can they count? I’m sure they can. Let them count the speed and the range of the weapons systems we are developing,” the Russian leader reportedly added. “Russia will be forced to create and deploy types of weapons which can be used not only in respect of those territories from which the direct threat to us originates, but also in respect of those territories where the centers of decision-making are located,” he continued. The State Department rejected Putin's remarks as "propaganda" in a statement to Reuters, saying the speech was designed to distract from Russia's alleged violations of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the U.S. “President Putin’s remarks are a continuation of Russia’s propaganda effort to avoid responsibility for Russia’s actions in violation of the INF Treaty,” a State Department spokeswoman told the news service. The Trump administration earlier this month announced long-anticipated plans to stop complying with the INF,  a Soviet-era arms control pact with Russia. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

International Relations

Two Republican House chairman from Utah are rolling out a comprehensive plan to reform federal land ownership and management in the state. The legislative package, dubbed the Public Lands Initiative, has been a top priority of House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob BishopRobert (Rob) William BishopThe House Republicans and Democrats not seeking reelection in 2020 Texas GOP lawmaker Conaway announces retirement Texas GOP Rep. Conaway won't seek reelection: report MORE (R-Utah), and comes after years of work, meetings and negotiations with disparate interests. Its key features include a 1.4 million-acre protected area in the Bear’s Ears region that’s considered sacred to American Indians and an expedited permitting process for oil and natural gas drilling on federal land where it is already allowed. Bishop and House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason ChaffetzJason ChaffetzHouse Oversight panel demands DeVos turn over personal email records The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by JUUL Labs - Trump attack on progressive Dems draws sharp rebuke GOP senators decline to criticize Acosta after new Epstein charges MORE (R-Utah) are the leading sponsors of the proposal. “The effort of PLI was always to solve problems that have led to acrimony, and to do so by conserving lands worthy of conservation and providing for economic and recreational opportunities for all Utahns. The status quo does not provide that,” Bishop said in a statement. “Utah is a public lands state. It has always been, and it always will be. The question is how those public lands are managed. That's where local government has the advantage. PLI takes that premise and builds it to a reality.” The bill serves in part to try to prevent President Obama from unilaterally declaring a 1.9 million-acre national monument in Bear’s Ears. Interior Secretary Sally JewellSarah (Sally) Margaret JewellNational parks pay the price for Trump's Independence Day spectacle Overnight Energy: Zinke extends mining ban near Yellowstone | UN report offers dire climate warning | Trump expected to lift ethanol restrictions Zinke extends mining ban near Yellowstone MORE is traveling to Utah this week to meet with local and state officials about the monument proposal — which the administration has not endorsed — and other ideas. Bishop initially reached out to conservation groups in writing the initiative, but many dropped out of the process along the way, like the Center for Western Priorities and the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. The Center for Western Priorities criticized the Thursday proposal, saying Obama should create the monument. “Unless this bill makes it to the President’s desk in a matter of weeks with necessary improvements, it will be incumbent on President Obama to ensure lands in Southern Utah are protected after an eight decade effort,” Jennifer Rokala, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Environment

Land Conservation

There is a right way to do something, and then there's Rihanna's way of doing something — a fact that rings especially true when it comes to the singer's groundbreaking Fenty Beauty line. Not only did she make sure that people of all skin tones could enjoy the creamy, full-coverage foundations by offering 40 shades, but she also delivered a diverse marketing campaign that raised the bar for the rest of the beauty industry. Suffice it to say, a great deal of effort went into prioritizing one crucial thing: inclusivity. So when Twitter user and graphic designer @lbertootero suggested that RiRi invite a trans woman to the next casting call, she was reportedly quick to address the fan's concerns over DM, and — because this is Rihanna we're talking about here — she also dropped a thoughtful response in the process. "I've had the pleasure of working with many gifted trans women throughout the years, but I don't go around doing trans castings!" Rihanna reportedly wrote in a response, which the fan posted to Twitter. "Just like I don't do straight non trans women castings! I respect all women, and whether they're trans or not is none of my business! I don't think it's fair that a trans woman, or man, be used as a convenient marketing tool! Too often I see companies doing this to trans and black women alike! There's always just that one spot in the campaign for the token 'we look mad diverse' girl/guy! It's sad!" The fan then allegedly DM'd the star to apologize for sounding critical and to express understanding — as well as ask permission to share the screenshot. Rihanna reportedly replied, "You absolutely didn't babe! Just didn't want you to think I intentionally leave anyone out!" The post has since racked up nearly 2,000 likes and multiple responses, and was re-posted by The Shade Room where fans took to the comments to show their support. "Exactly trans women ARE WOMEN. When there is casting for women all WOMEN, trans, black, Asian, white, Hispanic, Latina, curvy, and skinny should be welcomed with WIDE arms!!" one wrote. Dozens more called for "Rihanna for president." Others argued that hiring trans people on major campaigns is crucial for representation — something that has historically been lacking within the beauty industry. The band Sateen tweeted, "We respect Rihanna and agree that Trans bodies are used as an easy way to make brands appear 'inclusive'. But at this point visibility is integral for trans ppl. More brands need to be hiring trans/gnc ppl and poc in GENERAL." Another wrote, "Everybody is applauding her for saying this but to me that just sounds like an excuse to not include somebody." We've reached out to the fan and Fenty Beauty for further comment and to confirm the validity of this exchange. Related Video: Read these stories next:7 Brands That Have Fenty-Level Foundation Ranges For Women Of Color This Albino Woman's Review On The Fenty Beauty Shade Range Is Going Viral Watch Us Recreate Rihanna's Most Iconic Beauty Moments

Society

LGBTQ

This week, discuss the election at an open forum, make textile-based works on Black Friday, see two important new films about race and civil rights, and more. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads When: Tuesday, November 22, 7:30pm Where: Hammer Museum (10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Westwood, Los Angeles) The FDA currently prevents gay and bisexual men from giving blood if they have had sex with a man in the past year. This policy dates back more than 30 years to the early days of the AIDS epidemic, and is considered by many to be an unnecessary and discriminatory limitation on potential blood donations. Organized by artist Jordan Eagles, Blood Equality is a panel discussion featuring representatives from TwitterOpen, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, UCLA Division of Infectious Diseases, and others. Questions for the panelists can be submitted via Twitter using #AskBloodEquality. When: Opens Friday, November 25, 12–6pm Where: The Meow (email for address, Los Angeles) Instead of the gluttonous consumerism usually associated with the day after Thanksgiving, backyard shed-cum-art space The Meow offers a “non-corporate shopportunity.” Sillishop will present over 500 Sillisculpt figurines collected from thrift stores by artist Michael Decker. First appearing in the late 1960s, these hokey sculptures were sold as three-dimensional greeting cards, each embodying a different emotion, phrase, or sentiment, from the saccharine to the irreverent. The entire collection will be on sale, with prices based on condition and rarity of each piece. When: Friday, November 25, 12–9pm Where: Institute for Labor Generosity Workers and Uniforms (322 Elm Street, Long Beach, California) In keeping with her pledge to “Mend America,” Frau Fiber (Carole Frances Lung) will be hosting a Black Friday Stitch In,  a communal, textile-based gathering. Visitors can participate in a series of Peace Work activities, including creating an American flag from reclaimed fabric, and hand-stitching a large map of America. There will also be resources to assist in contacting government representatives to voice political concerns. When: Friday, November 25, 1–6pm Where: The Cinefamily (611 North Fairfax Avenue, Fairfax District, Los Angeles) Organized by Blackout for Human Rights, Blackout Black Friday is a call for a nationwide economic boycott on the busiest shopping day of the year to protest race and class-based acts of injustice. In Los Angeles, the group will be hosting a free event at The Cinefamily featuring screenings of Raoul Peck’s upcoming film I Am Not Your Negro, based on James Baldwin’s unfinished book Remember This House, and Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, that explores the link between slavery and mass incarceration. The event is free, but requires registration. When: Sunday, November 27, 2–5pm Where: 356 Mission (356 S. Mission Road, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles) Many in the art world have been grappling with ways to come to terms with the results of the presidential election and respond in an effective and meaningful way. In light of this, 356 Mission will be hosting What’s Now, an open forum bringing together activists and community groups who are working to mobilize against potential threats to civil liberties and freedoms posed by the incoming administration. When: Sunday, November 27, 8:30–11:30pm Where: Bootleg Theater (2220 Beverly Boulevard, Westlake, Los Angeles) Rachel Mason’s versatile artistic practice encompasses sculpture, theater, music, and film, often fusing them all into enigmatic spectacles. A great opportunity to experience one of her captivating performances in person is the upcoming show celebrating the release of her new album Das Ram. Also performing will be experimental post-punkers Egrets on Ergot, and dance-floor synth act L.A. Drones.

Society

LGBTQ

Critic's Notebook New York City Ballet has been renewing itself at all levels in its current six-week season, which is now in its fourth week. Dancers in the corps have shown exceptional talent in lead roles, notably that zephyr Joseph Gordon in “Symphony in Three Movements” (seen on May 5), the tall powerhouse Emily Kikta as the soloist in “Rubies,” the impishly ebullient Indiana Woodward in the pas de trois of “Emeralds” (both May 1). On Tuesday, its senior ballerina, Maria Kowroski, returned to the stage after childbirth, almost a year after her last performance. She’s the same tall and slender vision as ever, but with a newly free expansiveness. And City Ballet has been renewing the ballets of its founder-choreographer George Balanchine. He made the three ballets I’ve mentioned; he also made all three ballets in the triple bill that entered repertory last week. The three — “Ballo della Regina,” “Kammermusik No. 2,” and “Vienna Waltzes”, utterly unalike — comprise the richest fare of the whole season. The program’s diversity and mastery astounds. “Ballo” (“Ballet for the Queen”), set to ballet music from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Don Carlos,” is virtuoso classicism, in which outgoing allegro technique is taken to an exceptional peak of exuberance. Verdi’s ballet depicts the discovery of the celebrated pear-shaped white pearl La Peregrina (which Richard Burton later gave to Elizabeth Taylor). The twist in “Don Carlos” is that, although the dance is intended to honor Queen Elizabeth of Spain, she has absented herself from the celebrations. Instead, the woman who presides over the opera’s dance spectacle is her lady-in-waiting, Princess Eboli (wearing the queen’s mask), who sings with excitement of her chance to be queen for a single night. Though Balanchine’s plotless blue-and-white ballet shows you no pearl and no princess, you can feel multiple layers of that drama evoked by the poetry of his steps: pearl-fishing through plashing waters, grand royal processions, exultance in the fleeting moment. Feet sparkle, arms stretch wide. We hardly know which element we’re in. A cavalier, immediately after promenading his ballerina, beats his legs in the air (a cabriole). “Kammermusik,” set to Paul Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 2 (1925), for piano and orchestra, is uncompromising modernism, intensely rhythmical and abounding in deliberate oddities. Unusually for Balanchine, the corps de ballet is all male and much of what Balanchine gives these eight men, often corresponding to the orchestra, is more unusual yet, consisting of crouches, tableaus and chains that become knots. Dancers often step on alternating heels or turn in their knees. Sometimes they bring their wrists in beside their shoulders, with hands pointing out sideways like spiky epaulets. Two leading male-female couples, often teamed with the solo piano, sometimes stationary while the corps moves, dance with intense musical intricacy. Rapid echo and canon effects abound. These four, too, plant their legs apart, prance on their heels, fold knees across each other, but at speed. The women wear their hair in ponytails, and the way those swish around their necks and faces is part of the texture of the piece. “Vienna Waltzes” is a panoply — a vast, composite world of five different scenes, to music by Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehar and Richard Strauss. In only one of the five do women dance on point. The changes in Rouben Ter-Arutunian’s scenery alone make the ballet a spectacle like no other. We begin in the Vienna woods, with tenderly romantic chivalry between male-female couples (“G’Schichten aus dem Wienerwald,” or “Tales From the Vienna Woods”). We then pass through ballet entertainment (“Frühlingstimmen”, or “Voices of Spring”) and joyful non-waltz vulgarity (Johann Strauss II’s “Explosions-Polka”) and the formal flirtations of “Gold und Silber Waltzer” (“Gold and Silver Waltzes”). And the “Rosenkavalier” finale, one of Balanchine’s most poetically psychological dramas, is a dream-ballroom fantasy, in which a woman, in a long dance soliloquy, is repeatedly partnered by a man who may be her fantasy or an increasingly real suitor in whom she can scarcely believe. City Ballet has fielded two casts in all three ballets. No dancing has been poor; some has been outstanding. In “Ballo” (Sunday), Tiler Peck, that virtuoso, finds one of her very finest roles: while its bravura challenges her, its musicality releases her. In the Tuesday performance, Anthony Huxley was, as so often this season, dynamite in the male role. The four women soloists — notably Ashley Laracey in the first solo — beautifully caught the choreography’s shining marriage of rhythmic flow and brilliant allure. Sara Mearns and Teresa Reichlen led “Kammermusik” on Tuesday with an uncompromising, thundering force. And yet the same two women were paragons of touchingly romantic old-world femininity in “Vienna Waltzes” on Sunday. — Ms. Reichlen in the Vienna Woods scene with Tyler Angle, Ms. Mearns in the “Rosenkavalier” ballroom with Jared Angle (Tyler’s brother). Ms. Kowroski graced the same scene with Amar Ramasar on Tuesday. Tiny nuances in these artists’ interpretations, such as the meeting of eyes, the touch of a hand, the turn of a head, became powerful. But you come out thinking of Balanchine. Astonishingly, these three ballets had their premieres between June 1977 and January 1978, in his final period. City Ballet was almost 30 years old. He was in his 70s. Top-quality choreography of immense diversity was still pouring forth from him. The bewildering range of styles in these three works demonstrates why he merits the word “genius.” A Critic’s Notebook article last Thursday about New York City Ballet misidentified the composer of “Explosions-Polka,” one of the pieces used in the George Balanchine ballet “Vienna Waltzes.” He was Johann Strauss II — not Franz Lehar, who composed another piece used in the ballet.

Dance

Ballet

(Reuters) - Investors strengthened their long positions in most Asian currencies over the past two weeks, while bearish bets on the Indian rupee were reversed as trade tensions clouded the U.S. dollar outlook. Uncertainty around where the U.S.-China trade standoff is headed has dulled the dollar’s appeal. The dollar index, which was trading up 0.03 percent against a basket of major currencies at 0532 GMT, has recorded five straight quarters of losses into the first quarter of 2018. The outlook for the greenback remains dim despite market expectations for the U.S. Federal Reserve to adopt a more hawkish monetary stance, with several market players pricing in more than three rate hikes this year. “Despite the apparent improvement in global risk appetite levels overnight, we are obviously not out of the woods yet with respect to global trade war tensions,” said Emmanuel Ng, FX strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation. Relatively steady short-term Asian currency options, backed by improved foreign investment inflows, indicated a supportive backdrop for local currencies, he added. The Korean won proved to be the biggest beneficiary of dollar bearishness, with long positions in the currency at their strongest since the beginning of January. With the U.S.-China trade tensions as backdrop, South Korea and the United States renegotiated a six-year-old trade pact known as KORUS, which has a side-deal that requires South Korea increase the transparency of its foreign exchange interventions. Also, much of the won’s strength this year is an overhang from stellar gains last year. However, it has seen sharp fluctuations lately, which government officials said early this week they were watching. The currency continues to be on the U.S. currency monitoring list. Long wagers on the Singapore dollar, Taiwanese dollar, and the Malaysian ringgit also grew, the poll of 12 market participants showed. Similarly, bearish sentiment on the Indian rupee reversed ahead of a Reserve Bank of India meeting on Thursday. Despite a weak inflation report, the RBI is seen by markets as having ruled out a rate cut, and is expected to stand pat on rates for a fourth straight time at its impending monetary meeting. Bullish bets on the Chinese yuan were largely unchanged for a fourth straight time in the past month and a half, although a separate Reuters poll expects the currency to slip marginally against the dollar in 2018. The Asian currency positioning poll is focused on what analysts and fund managers believe are the current market positions in nine Asian emerging market currencies: the Chinese yuan, South Korean won, Singapore dollar, Indonesian rupiah, Taiwan dollar, Indian rupee, Philippine peso, Malaysian ringgit and the Thai baht. The poll uses estimates of net long or short positions on a scale of minus 3 to plus 3. A score of plus 3 indicates the market is significantly long U.S. dollars. The figures include positions held through non-deliverable forwards (NDFs). Reporting by Rushil Dutta; Additional reporting by Christina Martin in Bengaluru; Editing by Eric Meijer

Finance

Currency

Mike Gravel: Why I support Bernie over Warren Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) topped progressive rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a new national poll released on Tuesday. Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) on Tuesday doubled down on his calls for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to be censored and removed from the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against President Trump.  Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) said Tuesday that President Trump’s decision to drop plans to hold next year's Group of Seven (G-7) summit at one of his own properties was a "wise" one. Democratic strategist Daria Dawson on Monday cautioned Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to be careful about how he goes about differentiating himself from progressive 2020 rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Opinion by: Saagar Enjeti Fourteen percent of Republican voters said in a recent Hill-HarrisX poll that President Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson stressed Monday that House Democrats have to continue to move forward on their impeachment inquiry against President Trump, saying his actions have been "perilous" to our democracy. Presidential candidate and author Marianne Williamson doubled down on her criticism of the Democratic National Committee, accusing the DNC of “dictating rather than facilitating the process of democracy.” Opinion by: Krystal Ball Opinion by: Saagar Enjeti A day or so has passed, so the full emptiness of Kamala Harris's appearance on the debate stage has finally settled in my mind. A majority of voters say the Trump administration should cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll. Progressive commentator Maximillian Alvarez criticized the Democratic Party, saying its establishment has a tendency to slap “a new face on old politics.” The Hill’s Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack mourned the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who passed away Thursday morning at the age of 68. Opinion by: Krystal Ball  Opinion by: Saagar Enjeti A bitter debate has erupted online, and for once, it's actually substantive and relevant to all our lives. A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent said she was “heartened” by the whistleblower's complaint at the center of the impeachment inquiry, saying she hoped it would be considered "on its merits." A former public teacher based in Chicago said Thursday that the recent rise of teacher strikes across the country has been a “wake-up call” for the Democratic Party, which he argued has been on the wrong side of the issue for years. Voters are almost evenly split on President Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released on Thursday. Former high school teacher Eric Blanc ripped Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) following failed contract negotiations with the Chicago Public School teachers union, saying “it’s a question of political priorities, not economic feasibility.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) defended President Trump's decision to withdraw troops from Syria, saying that the Kurds would be better off aligned with Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Opinion by: Krystal Ball The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Government

Several high-profile college basketball programs likely are keeping a close eye on the next moves from lawyer Michael Avenatti, charged Monday with trying to extort up to $25 million from Nike. Federal prosecutors in California and New York allege that Avenatti threatened to expose misconduct by Nike employees regarding NCAA rules violations involving a Nike-sponsored AAU team. Monday’s charges came less than an hour after Avenatti tweeted: “This criminal conduct reaches the highest levels of Nike and involves some of the biggest names in college basketball.” After being released on a $300,000 bond, he resumed attacks on Twitter on Tuesday, mentioning two players by name — former Arizona center Deandre Ayton and currently injured Oregon big man Bol Bol — as having received money from Nike while they were recruits. The federal complaint against Avenatti said that the lawyer’s client “had a sponsorship agreement with Nike pursuant to which Nike paid the AAU program approximately $72,000 annually.” Sources told ESPN that the client is Gary Franklin, coach of the California Supreme program in Los Angeles. Franklin has coached several current NBA players, including 2018 No. 1 pick Ayton, De’Anthony Melton (USC), Solomon Hill (Arizona) and Aaron Holiday (UCLA). Other alums from the California Supreme include Bol, who will enter the draft after his freshman season was cut short due to a foot injury, and UCLA’s Shareef O’Neal, the son of Shaquille O’Neal. A U.S. attorney’s office spokesperson told ESPN that Avenatti’s allegations about Nike’s possible involvement in the college basketball recruiting scandal are being looked at. “Our investigation is continuing,” the spokesperson said. Avenatti’s claims of NCAA violations come while Nike is wrapped up in an FBI investigation into corruption in college basketball involving bribery, financial advisors and major apparel sponsors such as Nike and Adidas. Four former assistant coaches — Auburn’s Chuck Person, Southern California’s Tony Bland, Arizona’s Emanuel “Book” Richardson and Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans — have pleaded guilty to crimes uncovered in the investigation and are awaiting sentencing. While awaiting other potential claims by Avenatti, the college basketball world is bracing for the next federal basketball corruption trial, set to begin April 22. Arizona coach Sean Miller and LSU coach Will Wade reportedly have received subpoenas to testify. LSU recently suspended Wade after reports that he was heard talking on a federal wiretap to Christian Dawkins, a middleman for agents, about an illegal payment to a recruit. Dawkins was found guilty of felony fraud charges last fall. Dawkins, Adidas director of global marketing James Gatto and Adidas consultant and basketball organizer Merl Code were found guilty on wire fraud and conspiracy charges in October. They are defendants in next month’s trial, facing bribery charges relating to the payment of coaches. —Field Level Media

Sports

Basketball

Feb 18 (Reuters) - Cerner Corp: * CERNER ANNOUNCES LEADERSHIP CHANGES FOCUSED ON INCREASING ALIGNMENT WITH CLIENT SUCCESS * CERNER CORP - ANNOUNCED APPOINTMENT OF DON TRIGG TO PRESIDENT Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

Business

Appointments

Nov 14 (Reuters) - * Moody’s affirms Jordan’s B1 rating; outlook remains stable * Moody’s on Jordan- outlook reflects views that government will continue pursue fiscal consolidation that should stabilize high debt metrics over medium term * Moody's on Jordan - although domestic politics have been relatively stable, the government faces continued pressure to maintain social spending Source text for Eikon: [ID:bit.ly/2f9Ygk7]

Economics

Finance

It’s surprising how dirty a home can get in just a few days. Dust builds up, crumbs are spilled, and if you have pets — you know how bad the shedding can be. Sometimes, it seems like just a day or two after you’ve deep-cleaned everything, the mess is back and worse than ever. One way you can give yourself a break from this nightmare is to buy better cleaning tools — and you can start by getting a great vacuum. As part of a special promotion, Dyson is taking $150 off of their V6 Fluffy Vacuum with the code SPRINGSAVE. Usually priced at $299.99, you can score this high-powered tidying tool for just $149.99. The Dyson V6 Fluffy Vacuum is defined by its strength and versatility. Powered by Dyson’s V6 motor, the Fluffy Vac cranks out powerful suction for up to 20 minutes without any fade in performance. The device also includes a second power mode for up to six minutes of maximum strength. Its three included tools are especially helpful and fun to use — the combination tool is great for quickly switching between surfaces, the crevice tool is designed to get around edges and narrow gaps, and the mini motorized tool tackles ground-in dirt and hair. The Fluffy Vacuum can even transform into handheld and extended modes — there's nothing you can’t reach. Finally, the Dyson’s docking station can be neatly mounted on your wall for easy recharging. Start increasing your time between spring cleaning sessions — use the code SPRINGSAVE and pick up a Dyson V6 Fluffy Vacuum for $150 off.    Dyson V6 Fluffy Vacuum — $149.99 See Details

Home and Garden

Kitchen

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is calling on his fans to protest Scott Pruitt, calling President-elect Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a "piece of s---." Put simply, Scott Pruitt is a piece of shit. If you care about the outdoors, stop him https://t.co/jh4VM7SECx #PruittHearing Kimmel, who hosts ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” also posted a link to the environmental group American Rivers's website, reading: President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency is someone who has fought consistently to block environmental protections. The American people did not vote to put the EPA in the hands of someone who has recklessly worked against its mission to protect Americans’ water. Tell your Senators: Do not put our clean water and rivers at risk. Vote no for the nomination of Scott Pruitt as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. American Rivers’s website says the organization “protects wild rivers, restores damaged rivers and conserves clean water for people and nature.” Pruitt’s confirmation hearing began Wednesday before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersTop Sanders adviser: Warren isn't competing for 'same pool of voters' Eight Democratic presidential hopefuls to appear in CNN climate town hall Top aide Jeff Weaver lays out Sanders's path to victory MORE (I-Vt.) battled Pruitt, Oklahoma's attorney general, over his calls for “more debate” about human influence on climate change. “Ninety-seven percent of the scientists who wrote articles in peer-reviewed journals believe that human activity is the fundamental reason we are seeing climate change,” Sanders said. "Do you disagree with that?” “My personal opinion is immaterial to the job I’m carrying out,” Pruitt responded. “You are going to be the head of the agency to protect the environment, and your personal feelings about whether climate change is caused by human activity and carbon emissions is immaterial?” Sanders retorted. Aggressive action to counter climate change was a key plank of Sanders's platform in his presidential bid last year. Trump has pledged to roll back all of President Obama’s climate agenda, including the Clean Power Plan and limits on methane emissions from oil and gas drilling, all of which Pruitt opposes as well. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Government

U.S. forces conducted an airstrike against the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab group in Somalia on Sunday, killing five militants, U.S. Africa Command (Africom) said Monday. The strike happened in the afternoon near El Bur, a town in the semi-autonomous central Somali region of Galmudug. The strike also destroyed one vehicle, according to Africom. Africom said it assessed no civilians were killed in the strike. “U.S. forces will continue to use all authorized and appropriate measures to protect U.S. citizens and to disable terrorist threats,” Africom said in a statement. “This includes partnering with [the African Union Mission in Somalia] and Somali National Security Forces (SNSF) in combined counterterrorism operations and targeting terrorists, their training camps and their safe havens throughout Somalia and the region.” Africom provided no additional details of the strike. U.S. forces have been working with the Somali government to fight al-Shabaab for years, but under President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE airstrikes and ground troops have significantly increased. The United States has roughly 500 troops in Somalia. In March 2017, Trump granted a request from the head of Africom to give commanders more authority to conduct airstrikes and raids against al-Shabaab without high-level, interagency reviews. Late last year, U.S. forces also launched their first strikes against Somalia’s Islamic State in Iraq and Syria affiliate.  Underscoring al-Shabaab’s threat, the militants carried a coordinated attack on three African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) bases Sunday in the Lower Shabelle region, an al-Shabaab stronghold near the Somali capital of Mogadishu. AMISOM said it lost four soldiers in the ensuing battles and killed 30 al-Shabaab fighters. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Middle East

Johnny Depp‘s former business managers are alleging the actor physically abused his ex-wife Amber Heard — and knowingly tried to cover it up on at least one occasion. “[Joel Mandel, one of the managers,] was informed well after the fact through communications with various house staff and security that Depp had been extremely volatile and had sometimes ‘gotten physical’ with Heard,” the actor’s former managers at The Management Group (TMG) claim in legal docs filed in May and obtained by PEOPLE. “Mandel was also later informed that Depp had violently kicked Heard during an incident that took place in or around 2014,” the docs add. Just a week after she filed for divorce last year, Heard asked for a domestic violence restraining order against Depp, claiming the actor had been abusive on several occasions, including one incident that left her in fear for her life. Depp vehemently denied the alleged abuse throughout the contentious divorce, calling the allegations “salacious false stories, gossip, misinformation, and lies.” He also accused the actress of making the allegations up in an attempt to “extend her fifteen minutes of fame.” But TMG claims Depp knew the allegations were true, and even attempted to cover up evidence on one occasion. During the divorce, text messages were released and published by Entertainment Tonight, which purported to show a conversation between Depp’s longtime assistant and Heard. In the texts, Depp’s assistant is allegedly shown apologizing to the actress for Depp’s “disgusting” behavior, including references to Depp allegedly kicking Heard. “However, Depp and his longtime assistant publicly denied the messages and outrageously accused Heard of manufacturing them,” the court docs read. “TMG is informed and believes that Depp knew full well that the text messages were genuine, but pressured and berated his assistant to falsely challenge the texts publicly.” The legal docs are part of an ongoing lawsuit between Depp and TMG, which began when sued the firm in February for $25 million in a fraud lawsuit. TMG filed a cross-complaint, claiming the actor lived an “ultra-extravagant lifestyle that often knowingly cost Depp in excess of $2 million per month to maintain, which he simply could not afford.” Reps for Depp did not respond to a request for comment.

People

Names

A guy with a courtside seat to Friday night's Pelicans–Rockets game pulled off a pretty impressive stunt when he managed to not only get on the court but shoot an actual shot during warmups. Wearing virtually the same gear as the New Orleans players were, and helpfully obscuring his face with his hoodie up, this dude got out there, went through some exaggerated stretching routine, and then started signaling for a ball. After a little prodding, someone finally obliged him. His form is not quite NBA–ready—well, maybe it could work in Philly, but still—and his profile does not quite fit NBA Player, either, so security was pretty quick to figure out that he did not belong on the court. Surprisingly, he was not kicked out of the game. The man, it turns out, is a comedian named Tony Roberts and so he might have gotten a little extra leeway from security. He was in town for a comedy festival put on by DeMarcus Cousins the following night called "Boogie's Comedy Slam." Boogie, of course, went down with what wound up being a season-ending ruptured Achilles tendon with just 12 seconds left in the game, but he still made it to his show and seemed in good spirits: The Pelicans beat the Rockets 115-113, despite Roberts' 0-1 performance.

Sports

Basketball

Millennials have a different approach to the workforce compared to previous generations.    They are career explorers, trying different things and always developing new skills. Whether they have a desire to travel, want to explore different avenues that play to their strengths, or are going through a life change, millennials generally gravitate towards the new.    And with new come a lot of changes. Some are great and exciting, but there are also practical matters and financial factors to consider before making a change.     No matter how often you decide to switch gears, it's a good idea to understand how an upcoming shift will affect you financially, and how you can best prepare for that.    When you start a new job, it can take time to get used to managing your finances in a new way. Maybe you’re paid on a different schedule than their previous job, or your take home pay is different.     One thing that can shift drastically is how taxes impact cash flow. When in a career transition, it's important that you have everything in order and understand any regulations that apply to you in this new job and how you are taxed.    For example, it's pivotal that you understand how your Canadian Pension Plan and Employment Insurance are affected. When you start a new career, the contributions you make to these accounts reset for the fiscal year. This does not mean that your contributions disappear, just that the amount you put into it automatically resets to the minimum.   If your previous employer had a retirement savings plan, stock purchase plan or other employee benefits plan, make sure you understand what is required when you leave the company. Employers may require you to transfer funds out to your own savings plan or allow you to stay in the current plan. Understand your rights and obligations under the plan, as each one has its own complexities and requirements. You'll want to know exactly what your new position qualifies you for in terms of deductions. If you're a freelancer or consultant, you should look into deductions for expenses you incurred while on the job. If your new job requires you to relocate more than 40 kilometers so you can be closer to work, you can deduct some moving expenses.    You’ll also need to make sure you understand the benefits that come with your new job. Your medical benefits and savings plans could be drastically different than in your old position, so it is important that you explore these plans and find the answers to any questions you may have. And make sure you sign up for these programs as soon as you can so you can take full advantage during your time with that job.   These financial matters may seem complicated, but never fear. There is a plethora of products offered by TurboTax, which can help guide you through the transition and ensure you're getting the most out of your tax return.    TurboTax Free can help you easily fill out your federal taxes – and Quebec taxes, if that's where you reside – simply and properly. It’s all laid out so that you can understand exactly what personal information you need to input, and which slips need to be filled out.     With the Auto-Fill My Return tool, you take the information from forms like your T4 and RRSP and import it automatically into the right place on your return. Then it's easier for you to fill out the rest. This makes the whole process painless and quick, and you'll know you've filled everything out correctly.    The TurboTax Free Suggested Slips tool asks simple questions about you, then suggests the forms that you should fill out for your particular situation. This eliminates the worry and confusion surrounding all those various forms.     An added bonus is that you can use these tools on the go. TurboTax has multiple offerings that work on different devices, so you can be sure that you'll find one that is right for you.     With a variety of great tools and features, it's no wonder that TurboTax is Canada's top selling tax software and has helped Canadians fill out some 27 million returns since 2009. Check out the product list and see how TurboTax can help you this tax season.  

Finance

Investing

Chances are, we all know someone who has talked about a boss they didn’t care for.  It’s easy to blame the person in charge and to deflect internal unhappiness onto an external target. The key to getting yourself out of the blame game is to know yourself and what you want from the person you report to.  If you have a handle on what motivates you, then it really doesn’t matter what external circumstances come into play. That includes a boss you don’t mesh with! Understand what sets you up for success, and you’ll have a much easier time getting where you want to go.  While you can’t always hand pick your manager, there are things you can do to make any working relationship better. Know Your Options Management styles can be boiled down into several main categories. There’s hands-off management, micro-management, the motivator, the disciplinarian. Chances are that you’ll meet your future boss during the interview process.  If you aren’t sure who would be your manager, ask. If you haven’t spoken to them already, see if you can. Ask their management style, what they expect from their team and how they celebrate wins. If you interview with people who would be on your team, ask about their experience and what’s helped them succeed. What Motivates You? Knowing yourself is essential to having good working relationships, particularly with your boss. Do you want someone who follows up with you constantly? Do you need to try things on your own and get feedback after on how to improve? Are you good at keeping someone updated as things come up or do you prefer to be checked in with? Answer these questions honestly. Once you know what motivates you and how you like to be communicated with, share it. You can get the boss you need by talking openly about your preferences. Do this in a way that they can hear. Ask them how they like to be communicated with.  Remember that your boss may not be able to meet all of your needs. Even after you’ve had a conversation with your manager about what motivates you, it’s still on you to continue doing what you can to set yourself up for success. Don’t leave your happiness and success entirely up to your boss - they are probably doing their best juggling multiple priorities. Stay Positive If you’re having a difficult time with your boss, remember, they are human too. Have empathy and compassion for your co-workers no matter what. Remember that you don’t know everything about their life.  The business world is more connected than ever, and chances are this person will be called upon to give you a reference, or may know someone at a company you apply to in the future. Also, don’t forget that hopping around doesn’t look good on your resume. I’ve written before about how to put your best foot forward through your resume, and one way is to show loyalty and dedication to a company.  If you’re having a tough time, go back to what’s in your control and what you can do to better the situation. And, remember – you can avoid a difficult situation later on if you ask the right questions in your interviews!  Carolyn Betts Fleming is the Founder and CEO of Betts Recruiting, the leading global recruitment firm specializing in matching revenue-generating talent with the world’s most innovative companies. 

Other

Other

April 5 (Reuters) - Biotec Pharmacon: * SAID ON THURSDAY UNIT BIOTEC BETAGLUCANS RENEWS CONTRACT WITH LARGEST CUSTOMER WITHIN ANIMAL HEALTH * EXPECTED REVENUES, DEPENDING ON THE SALES OF THE CUSTOMER TO ITS END-USERS, ARE APPROXIMATELY NOK 20 MLN ANNUALLY Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

Medical Technology

Biotech

The CIA and other intelligence agencies agree with another U.S. agency’s assessment that North Korea has miniaturized a nuclear warhead to fit on a missile, NBC News reported Thursday. The Washington Post first reported earlier this week that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in late July assessed that North Korea had reached the key milestone in its quest for a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. It was unclear from the Post report on Tuesday whether any of the other 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agreed with the DIA’s assessment, though the DIA report excerpt quoted by the Post did refer to the intelligence community as a whole. “The [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles,” the DIA assessment said, according to the newspaper. NBC’s report on Thursday says that other agencies, including the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, agree with the DIA's assessment. According to NBC, it remains unknown what level of confidence the agencies are ascribing their assessment — low, medium or high. Since the Post report, tensions between Pyongyang and Washington have skyrocketed, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump engaged in a war of words. On Tuesday, Trump warned Kim of “fire and fury” awaiting North Korea if he continues to threaten the United States. Hours later, the North Korean state media carried a statement from the country’s army that threatened an attack on a U.S. military base in Guam. Wednesday morning, Trump took to Twitter to brag about the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and on Thursday morning, North Korea detailed a planned missile salvo toward Guam. Defense Secretary James MattisJames Norman MattisOnly Donald Trump has a policy for Afghanistan New Pentagon report blames Trump troop withdrawal for ISIS surge in Iraq and Syria Mattis returns to board of General Dynamics MORE also warned North Korea of the “end of its regime,” though he specified it would be actions, not words, that would lead to a U.S. response. “The [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” Mattis said in a statement Wednesday. “The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people." View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

International Relations

Insider Picks writes about products and services to help you navigate when shopping online. Insider Inc. receives a commission from our affiliate partners when you buy through our links, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective. Richer Poorer, cult-favorite women's and men's basics brand, was once a successful sock and underwear wholesaler.The brand wanted to build out collections and scale its direct-to-consumer operations, and was acquired in 2015 for $12 million by digital sales company Shoes.com.Richer Poorer's founders Iva Pawling and Tim Morse found out the new owners were going bankrupt in December of 2016, and bought the company back for $8 million.The company narrowly escaped bankruptcy, and is now bigger and better than ever.If you ask us, Richer Poorer's best items are their T-shirts, which are made from a supremely soft and comfortable silicone-washed organic cotton. California brand Richer Poorer is known among its fan base for creating amazingly comfortable basics and loungewear. Its T-shirts are lusciously soft, sweats as cozy as can be, and bralettes as unrestrictive as possible — they sell out more often than not. But there was a time when the brand almost lost everything. The company, which was founded in 2010 by Iva Pawling and Tim Morse and invested in by the likes of Patrick Carney from the Black Keys, originally began selling comfortable, cleverly designed socks and underwear to upscale department store retailers like Bloomingdales. After a few years, the business found success as a wholesaler, but the company was interested in scaling to focus more on their direct-to-consumer efforts. To begin that process, they knew they'd need to raise $2 million capital — but they also knew it was unlikely they'd get anywhere with investment banks that often go for larger projects. So when online retailer Shoes.com offered to buy the company for $12 million total, keeping Pawling and Morse on to manage, they agreed to the acquisition. Promising to help them with operations, digital strategy, and website development, Shoes.com seemed like a great fit. They'd have access to resources like never before, and be able to focus on what mattered for the future of their business. That was the hope — until they found out their new owner would be declaring bankruptcy, potentially bringing Richer Poorer down with them in the fire. Pawling and Morse used the strong relationships they had built with two board members and bought the company back with them for $8 million just one month before Shoes.com officially went under (they have since re-emerged with decent success). After narrowly escaping a certain demise, Richer Poorer managed to rebuild themselves into a cult-favorite basics brand in a strange riches-to-rags-back-to-riches story of resilience. They are now expecting over $10 million in sales this year alone, and are building out a strong presence in the direct-to-consumer market. Lately, they've launched some fun collaborations that pay homage to their roots as a (mostly) sock brand, like a selection of colorful pairs designed by popular graphic artist Will Bryant. If you ask us, Richer Poorer's best items are their T-shirts, which are made from a supremely soft and comfortable silicone-washed organic cotton. They have a cropped style for women for $34 that's cut at the perfect length, and plenty of classic men's versions, too — all ranging from $34-$38. Interestingly, the brand's laid-back vibe reflects nothing about the company's history. Through tumult and turmoil, they were able to build up a successful identity that represents the most aspirational version of "California cool" that we've seen since the era of Vans' skate shoes — and we've come to love them as much for their story as for their great clothing. Keep scrolling to see Richer Poorer's best sellers and collaborations, or click here to go straight to their website. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Women's Muscle Tank Shop all women's Muscle Tanks, $32 each Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Men's Crew Pocket Tee Shop all men's Crew Pocket Tees, $34 each Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Bralette Shop all women's Bralettes, $28 each Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Men's Sweatshirt Shop all men's Hoodies, $84 each Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Women's Boxy Crop Tee Shop all women's Boxy Crop Tees, $34 each Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Will Bryant Socks Shop all Will Bryant socks, $8.40-$9.40 each Subscribe to our newsletter.

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Retail

When does uncertainty become the worst condition of all? This fall, more than three years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, no one was sure what form Brexit would take, what kind of relationship we would have with our nearest neighbors, or whether the whole thing could still be called off. Theresa May, the first Conservative Prime Minister with the job of taking the United Kingdom out of the E.U., had been forced to step down at the end of July. The second, Boris Johnson, did not seem trustworthy. There was a departure time—11 P . M . on October 31st—which the government tried very hard to convince people was real. On September 1st, it launched a hundred-million-pound public-information campaign called “Get Ready for Brexit.” TV spots showed sparkling European vacation destinations and advised viewers to check their travel insurance. There was a six-second video on Snapchat. Signs flashed on highways in the rain, telling truck drivers, “Freight to EU, Papers May Change.” But everyone knew that Brexit was unlikely to happen by Halloween. May had spent two years negotiating an exit deal with the other twenty-seven members of the E.U., only to fail to get it approved by Parliament. Johnson, a flamboyant Brexiteer, wanted to rip up May’s agreement, but there didn’t seem to be time to start over. He insisted that Britain would leave, regardless of how talks went with Brussels. “No ifs or buts,” Johnson said, outside No. 10 Downing Street. The gulf between what the government said was going to happen and what seemed possible, let alone sensible, grew wider by the day. You could scroll through an article on your phone, full of the reasons that Brexit would not occur on October 31st, and be interrupted by an ad from the government telling you to get ready. The ructions in Westminster took on historic proportions. Johnson lost his first seven votes as Prime Minister. In one, rebel Conservative Members of Parliament joined the opposition to pass a law aimed at preventing Johnson from taking Britain out of the E.U. without a deal. Johnson asked the Queen to shut down Parliament; the Supreme Court opened it up again. He called for a general election; the Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, refused to agree to one unless Brexit was delayed. The pound fell. Death threats multiplied. Politicians quoted poetry. A third of British adults said that Brexit had affected their mental health. A man in a clown outfit stood outside the gates of Parliament shouting, “Save our bendy bananas!” Within weeks of the Brexit deadline, three very different outcomes were still possible. Johnson could somehow defy the odds and replace May’s deal with a more extreme form of Brexit, and get it approved by Parliament. He could seek to disobey the law and take Britain out of the E.U. without a deal. Or he would have to ask for an extension and hold an election, and the whole sorry story would continue. Newspapers published very complicated graphics, indicating all the branching futures. Foreigners marvelled at the mess. One European ambassador described the situation to me as an “intoxicating self-blockade.” Elements of the Brexit crisis have been there since the beginning. The referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union was a momentous act of direct democracy in a country that has been governed by Parliament for more than three hundred years. Seventy-four per cent of M.P.s, along with the Bank of England, the Confederation of British Industry, David Beckham, Stephen Hawking, and J. K. Rowling—“the establishment,” “the machine,” in the words of Leavers—opposed Brexit. The referendum did not specify what Brexit would look like. The constitution stretched and strained. The government struggled to cope. May’s attempts to contain the opposing forces in the country—the political imperative to leave and the frightening economic consequences of doing so—did not work. She ended up losing her majority in Parliament and crafting a compromise with the E.U., which satisfied nobody. Since taking office, Johnson has sought to channel the nationalist impulses that brought about the Brexit vote. Unlike May, who quietly campaigned for Remain, Johnson headlined pro-Brexit rallies and spoke of looking forward to Britain’s “Independence Day.” He talks winningly about the country’s future outside the deadening regulations and pooled sovereignty of the E.U. “The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts,” he has said. But Johnson’s political career has been marked by lies and evasions. “He is genuinely a bad person. Not an unlikable person but a bad person, as in he has no morals, no principles and beliefs,” a former close colleague told me. “He would be whatever Prime Minister was necessary to maximize the chances of gaining and then maintaining power.” Between 2008 and 2016, Johnson was a liberal mayor of London. During his campaign, earlier this year, to become the leader of the Conservative Party, he veered between promises to leave the E.U. on October 31st, “do or die,” and strange, chummy disquisitions on his hobby of making model buses and painting the passengers inside. It is hard to know how much he makes up as he goes along. Two days before Johnson took office, he hired as his senior adviser Dominic Cummings, the former campaign director of Vote Leave, the main pro-Brexit organization in 2016. Cummings had almost total control over the messaging of Vote Leave, which became notorious for its brazenness and its success with digital targeting. “Dom is obsessed with propaganda,” a former Vote Leave staffer told me. “He will build an army that is programmed to think like him.” This fall, Johnson’s high-risk approach to Brexit has been defined by martial imagery and language that summons memories of the Second World War. He said that attempts to block his plans amounted to “collaboration” with Brussels. He described the law passed by Parliament to stop Britain from leaving the E.U. without a deal as the “Surrender Bill,” and expelled twenty-one Conservative M.P.s who voted for it from the Party. On September 5th, Johnson answered questions about Brexit in front of an unsettling backdrop of black-uniformed police officers. When asked whether he would, if necessary, request an extension to the Brexit talks, he replied, “I’d rather be dead in a ditch.” “If it doesn’t make me scream, I get rid of it.” Cartoon by Kendra Allenby The government amplified its preparations for a no-deal Brexit, collectively known as Operation Yellowhammer. Opposition M.P.s forced the release of an internal report warning of interruptions to the supply of fresh food, fuel, and medicine, as well as potential job losses, nursing-home closures, and clashes between fishing boats at sea. “Protests and counter-protests will take place across the UK,” the report cautioned. The poor would suffer the most. The “Get Ready for Brexit” ads rolled on. “I’ve never experienced politics like it,” Dominic Grieve, one of the purged Conservative M.P.s, told me. “It’s a complete departure from U.K. norms, and I’m afraid it will leave a trail of damage.” The fury infected all sides. “We are now irreconcilably split for a generation,” Roland Rudd, the chairman of the People’s Vote campaign, which advocates for a new referendum, told me. “I don’t pretend that reversing this madness is going to bring us together. Honestly, it won’t.” Until Johnson came to power, it had been possible to believe that there was a middle way on Brexit, or to be in denial that a decisive moment would ever come. That was no longer the case. A year before the referendum, Cummings wrote a blog post outlining what the Leave campaign might look like. He quoted Otto von Bismarck: “If revolution there is to be, better to undertake it than undergo it.” In December, 2015, about one per cent of British people believed that Britain’s membership in the European Union was the most important issue facing the country. This summer, a poll of members of the Conservative Party—whose hundred and sixty thousand voters elected Johnson as the Party’s leader by a huge margin—showed that sixty-one per cent would accept significant damage to the British economy in order to get out of the E.U. Fifty-four per cent were willing to see the Conservative Party destroyed. “It is a complete mystery how something that was not a high-priority issue can become in three years your defining political identity,” the M.P. Rory Stewart told me. During the spring, Stewart, who served as a minister under Johnson in the Foreign Office, stood as a moderate candidate in the Conservative-leadership contest. Three months later, he was among those thrown out of the Party. “It is peculiar. It is fascinating,” Stewart said. “We are all sitting in the center with nothing.” Each fall, Britain’s political parties hold conferences—jamborees to raise money, rally the faithful, and grab a few days of media attention. At the end of September, the Conservative Party gathered for four days in Manchester, in a convention center that used to be one of the city’s main railway stations. Above the entrance, next to the old station clock, a large blue banner read “Get Brexit Done.” In a darkened auditorium, members of Johnson’s government took turns giving speeches on a low stage, and taking questions from fellow-Conservatives through an app. Matt Hancock, who is in charge of the National Health Service, announced a new hospital-building program. Hancock wore a sharp suit and spoke without notes, in short, uncomplicated sentences. He described visiting a cramped hospital in the city the previous day, parts of which dated from the nineteenth century, when it served as a workhouse. “Know this,” Hancock told the conference. “We won’t just fix the roof. We’re going to build you a whole new hospital.” One of the principal arguments for leaving the E.U. is that it will liberate Britain from the bloc’s amazing array of rules. Since Brexit was dreamed up by the right wing of the Conservative Party, it is generally assumed that part of the goal is to become a low-tax, small-state competitor to mainland Europe—a nirvana sometimes referred to as “Singapore-on-Thames.” But this is in conflict with the aspirations of the millions of people who voted for Brexit in the hope of better public services and a more responsive government. While in office, Johnson has made no attempt to align these contradictory desires. He has promised to hire twenty thousand new police officers and maintain a dramatic increase in spending on the N.H.S., while enacting tax cuts for higher earners. A former senior civil servant told me, “I think the Johnson strategy is basically to say, ‘I get it. And I’m not a kind of Thatcherite.’ But then to couple that with a very hard-line Brexit position.” He continued, “It might work. But, economically, by the mid-twenty-twenties, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble.” The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies forecasts that, under Johnson, government borrowing will be double the amount previously estimated, and that public spending will rise at its fastest rate in a decade. In Manchester, Hancock described Labour’s “Corbynistas” as “hellbent on destroying everything that’s made this country great.” According to the I.F.S., Johnson’s spending as Prime Minister is roughly in line with Corbyn’s most recent electoral promises. The hot events in Manchester were held by the Brexiteers. During May’s tenure, a group of some eighty Conservative M.P.s, known as the European Research Group, teamed up with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party to repeatedly scuttle her Brexit proposals. The current chair of the E.R.G. is Steve Baker, a born-again Christian and a former engineer, who has spoken of his wish to “tear Parliament down and bulldoze the rubble into the river,” for its behavior since the referendum. Baker’s predecessor in the job was Jacob Rees-Mogg, a tall, preternaturally posh former backbencher who is now the Leader of the House of Commons. In early September, footage of Rees-Mogg, lounging in the House of Commons as if he were at a Roman bath, had gone viral. He was unavoidable in Manchester: recording an episode of “The Moggcast,” signing T-shirts at the souvenir shop, looming above cocktail parties. One afternoon, I went to see Baker and Rees-Mogg speak at an event organized by the Free Market Conservatives. A banner featured a quote from Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher: “Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish?” Baker and Rees-Mogg were appearing with Andrea Jenkyns, another member of the E.R.G., who, like Baker, was one of twenty-eight so-called Spartans who voted against every form of May’s Brexit agreement. Winning over the Spartans, as well as the Democratic Unionist Party, would be essential to passing any deal with the E.U. that Johnson proposed. The room was packed. The crowd had come for Rees-Mogg. He arrived ten minutes late, to great applause, wearing a dark double-breasted suit. Even to a British person, Rees-Mogg is a figure out of time. His voice, a plangent, plummy thing, is like an artificial-intelligence simulacrum of how the upper classes spoke in Edwardian England. “Do you remember what all the panjandrums had to say?” Rees-Mogg asked, recalling the dire warnings ahead of the Brexit vote. “Plague of frogs. Death of the firstborn. Economic recession. Merely if we had the temerity to vote to leave. Against that pressure, against the I.M.F., against the O.E.C.D., against all the other sets of incomprehensible initials, we revolted. We said, ‘We will not be told what to do by acronyms. We are not having an acronymocracy.’ ” One of the riddles of English nationalism, as personified by Rees-Mogg and Johnson, is how seriously to take it. (Rees-Mogg has six children; the sixth is called Sixtus.) “A lot of this stuff sounds like it is sort of pantomime, this right-wing stuff in Britain,” Stewart told me. “Because the tone in which they do it is all a bit Gilbert and Sullivan.” Like other unlikely populist figures, Rees-Mogg operates within an ironic shimmer, knowing what people have come to hear. His descriptions of the perfidy of the British élite have the ring of an insider. “We found ourselves up against the British establishment at its least attractive,” he said. “People who pretend to do one thing and do another.” At the end, Rees-Mogg took a question about the Brexit Party—which was set up by Nigel Farage, in January, to campaign for an immediate departure from the E.U.—and the threat it posed to the Conservative Party at the next election. (Rees-Mogg’s sister Annunziata was elected to the European Parliament for the Brexit Party in May.) Rees-Mogg replied that everything rested on delivering Brexit on October 31st. “If we do, we win,” he said. “If we don’t, we lose.” For years, Rees-Mogg was a marginal figure in Parliament. In 2012, he suggested that the county of Somerset should have its own time zone. Before he joined Johnson’s administration, this summer, he had voted against the governments of May and David Cameron a hundred and twenty-seven times. After his event, I went to a meeting organized by the Conservative Group for Europe, one of the last remaining Europhile factions within the Party. It featured mainstream Conservative M.P.s—all former ministers—who had been ejected from the Party. The meeting was in a conference room at a hotel next to the convention center. I arrived a few minutes before it was due to start, at 7 P . M ., and ended up sitting next to Peter Hebden and Simon Wrenn, two Conservative elected officials from Hertfordshire, just north of London. It was the end of a long day. They had thought that there might be free food. Hebden, a former policeman, held an empty wineglass in his lap. The men joked about having voted for the Brexit Party in the European elections. “You wouldn’t be able to admit it if you had done it yourself, could you?” Wrenn said. “No,” Hebden said. “I couldn’t possibly admit it.” They were relaxed about a no-deal Brexit. “It’s what people politely refer to as a rebalancing of the economy,” Wrenn said. “That is, a load of people getting fucked over, isn’t it?” The Party rebels—Alistair Burt, a former Foreign Office minister; David Gauke, a former Justice Secretary; and Grieve, a former Attorney General—sat at a table at the front. The room had a low ceiling and spotlights, and the men were hemmed in by microphones and reporters. Grieve explained that they had voted with the opposition parties in Parliament to stop Johnson from taking the country out of the E.U. without an agreement because it would disproportionately affect the poor and the elderly. “We are all absolutely united that precipitating a no-deal departure is unacceptable,” Grieve said. “There! Now all you need is some sympathetic lighting.” Cartoon by William Haefeli “No, we’re not,” Hebden heckled. “Are we?” Grieve pressed on. Over the weekend, the right-wing Mail on Sunday had reported that the government was investigating him and the other rebel M.P.s for “foreign collusion,” alleging that they had received funding and legal assistance from European sources. Johnson described the situation as “very interesting.” (A Downing Street official later admitted that there was no investigation.) “What are we, as Conservatives, to make of this behavior?” Grieve asked his former Party colleagues. “It really goes to the heart of what we are.” Gauke, a former member of the E.R.G., spoke toward the end. He described the rapid evolution of the Conservatives under Johnson. Faced with the impasse in Westminster, the Party was widely reported to be preparing for an election campaign, in which the Tories would pivot to sweep up working-class Brexit supporters who have traditionally voted for Labour or for Farage’s populist parties. “We are going to be dragged in a particular direction,” Gauke said. “It means the Conservative Party becomes much more aggressive, much more confrontational, much more divisive. We are no longer the party of Churchill; we are more the party of Trump.” Next to me, Hebden booed loudly. At the end of the meeting, Grieve checked his phone to see what kind of abuse he was receiving on social media. “I don’t know where it is from,” he said of one message, smiling. “Hopefully not from somebody in the room.” He read it out: “You are a foul traitor.” Why was it so difficult to agree on a Brexit deal? The word that defined Theresa May’s struggles—and that became a metaphor, a pretext, a synecdoche for everything that was impossible—was “backstop.” Early in Britain’s negotiations with the E.U., which began in June, 2017, the bloc insisted on setting a default relationship—a backstop—in the unlikely event that trade talks failed. For the island of Great Britain, the options were clear enough. For the island of Ireland, the problem was close to metaphysical. Until the late nineties, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which has almost three hundred crossing points, was a frontier guarded by soldiers in watchtowers. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended the Troubles, gave citizens of Northern Ireland the right to identify as Irish, British, or both. It also committed the two governments to an ambitious program of coöperation, which was made simpler because they were both members of the E.U. Now, twenty years later, when you call for an ambulance near the border, it can come from either side. Fifty-six per cent of voters in Northern Ireland opposed Brexit. In February, 2018, the European Commission suggested a “Northern Ireland-only backstop,” in which the six counties of Northern Ireland would stay inside the main E.U. structures until a new permanent relationship could be established. The proposal called for regulatory checks on either side of the Irish Sea—creating an internal border, more or less, which, May said, “no U.K. Prime Minister could ever agree to.” In response, she proposed a “U.K.-wide backstop,” in which the whole country would retain some European regulations, plus additional ones for Northern Ireland, until the negotiators figured out what to replace them with. May’s backstop was her undoing. Everyone found a reason to hate it. E.U. officials described it as a “swimming pool” of rules, in which Britain would be partially submerged and Northern Ireland would be in the deep end. For Remainers, the arrangement captured the pointlessness of Brexit. The country would continue to obey E.U. laws, but without having a say in their formulation. For Brexiteers, May’s backstop seemed to reveal the real intentions of European officials and the British deep state: to never let the country leave at all. “That deal was so bad,” Baker, the chairman of the E.R.G., told me. “It was like exiting into a prison from which you can glimpse your freedom but never taste it.” Johnson came to power promising to scrap the backstop. On August 21st, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, offered him thirty days to solve the conundrum. Johnson described it as a “blistering timetable” and then seemed to ignore it. During the hiatus, it wasn’t clear that the British government wanted a deal at all. In early September, Cummings was quoted in the British media describing the negotiations as a “complete sham,” designed to run down time. (Cummings denied saying this.) Two weeks later, Johnson’s Brexit Secretary, Stephen Barclay, flew to Madrid and gave a speech warning darkly about how British imports of Spanish sherry and Manchego cheese might be affected. “We risk being trapped in a zero-sum game, which will lead to zero outcomes,” he said. In the talks, British negotiators announced that, in any future trade deal, they no longer wanted to keep the U.K.’s social and environmental rules in step with the E.U.’s—indicating a more radical departure than May’s government ever envisaged. E.U. officials bristled. “The U.K. is not Singapore,” one senior official told me. “This vision will rapidly hit reality.” The atmosphere was bad. But everybody knew that Johnson was a flexible character, who might be willing to do anything to get out of a jam. “There is that paradox,” the senior official said. “The problem is that nobody really knows the motive of the strategy of Johnson.” The Prime Minister made his pitch to replace the backstop on the last day of the Conservative Party conference. Extra seats had been set up in the auditorium. Party members waved Union Jacks. The lights dimmed and the words “Get Brexit Done” were projected onto five screens. The crowd chanted, “Boris! Boris!” Johnson entered to the opening chords of “Baba O’Riley,” by the Who. He is thickset. His hair, an astral blond, is swept forward in a short bowl and maintained in a permanent state of semi-mussedness. He cannot resist a buzzy phrase. Onstage, he described Brexit Britain as “a world-class athlete with a pebble in our shoe.” He said, “If Parliament were a laptop, then the screen would be showing, I’m afraid, the pizza wheel of doom.” Johnson stretched and swung his arms to get himself going. He pumped his knees under the lectern. He wriggled his fingers to enliven some talk about high-speed Internet cables, which he described as “super-informative vermicelli.” He muttered, “It’s true, it’s true,” when people laughed or clapped. He said only a few lines about his new plan for Northern Ireland. “This is a compromise by the U.K.,” he said. “And I hope very much that our friends understand that and compromise in their turn.” Then he asked the Party faithful about a no-deal exit: “Are we ready for it?” The hall cheered. “Yes, we are,” Johnson affirmed. The details of his proposal were published a few hours later. It was a dizzying scheme—even by the technical standards of the Brexit talks—with ad-hoc customs checks away from the border and other checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea. Instead of a hard border, there would be two “half borders.” The whole instrument would rely on the support of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the territory’s fractious parliament, which had not sat for almost three years, owing to a scandal caused by subsidies for wood-pellet-burning boilers. E.U. officials whom I spoke to were politely nonplussed. “What we have on the table is a kind of mixtum, a composite of various elements,” the European ambassador said. “That is maybe the particular challenge of this proposal.” Given Johnson’s rhetoric, no one was sure that the idea was even serious. “Are we being gaslighted by the British government?” an E.U. diplomat asked me. For almost a week, the offer hung in the air. Writing in the Belfast Telegraph , Jonathan Powell, who was Tony Blair’s chief negotiator in Northern Ireland, concluded that Johnson’s proposal would “undermine the basis on which the Good Friday Agreement was built.” Irish officials had a similar response. “We have taken down barriers,” one said. “Why would we put up a new one?” The problem of Northern Ireland occupied the heart of the Brexit crisis because it asked, in the starkest terms, what kind of new relationships were really going to be feasible with Britain’s closest neighbors—given the constraints of trade, geography, and bloodshed. It also contained the biggest risk of going wrong. In a no-deal scenario, both sides agreed, a hard border would be inevitable, and violence would likely return. “That’s where we are,” the former senior civil servant said. “That’s the bugger of the situation.” At moments, the talks seemed certain to collapse. On October 7th, a senior government official—widely believed to be Cummings—sent a long text message to The Spectator , Johnson’s former outlet, blaming opposition M.P.s for their attempted “sabotage” of the Prime Minister’s efforts to make a new deal. “They’ve probably succeeded,” the official wrote. “History is full of such ironies and tragedies.” The next morning, Johnson spoke to Merkel from Downing Street. Within minutes, an anonymous source leaked an account of the call to the British media; the German Chancellor was alleged to have demanded that Northern Ireland stay permanently in the E.U.’s customs union. “It means a deal is essentially impossible, not just now but ever,” the source said. I arrived in Westminster a few hours later. Climate protesters had blocked streets around Parliament Square, making it still and desolate. I met Nigel Dodds, the Parliamentary leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, in his office, next to the House of Commons. We sat by a brown-tiled fireplace, under a large portrait of Winston Churchill. The D.U.P. is one of the most hard-line pro-unionist parties in Northern Irish politics. It opposed the Good Friday Agreement, for the concessions that it made to Irish nationalists, and was the only party in the territory to campaign for Brexit. Since 2017, the ten M.P.s of the D.U.P. have been nominal allies of the Conservatives in Parliament, but they broke with May and worked closely with the E.R.G. to defeat her deal. “You were talking to Terry Gross in your sleep again.” Cartoon by Luke Kruger-Howard Dodds was much happier to have Johnson in office. Before he became Prime Minister, Johnson had courted the D.U.P. “He’s been very, very clear on the fact that the breakup of the United Kingdom is not a price that he’s prepared to pay,” Dodds told me. The Party approved of Johnson’s plan, but Dodds worried about the intransigence of the Irish government and the E.U. I asked him if he trusted Johnson to stand by the D.U.P. as the crisis intensified. “I’m asked this question a lot,” Dodds replied. “ ‘Do you trust Johnson?’ All I can say is, I can only trust ourselves. I can only trust myself.” Johnson abandoned the D.U.P. two days later. On October 10th, he met Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach, at Thornton Manor, a mock-Elizabethan country pile near Liverpool. They were photographed, deep in conversation, walking in the gardens. Varadkar came away smiling. The two leaders spoke of “a pathway to a possible deal.” The pathway required secrecy and diplomatic legerdemain. For several days, no one knew quite what Johnson had conceded. Then the shape of the compromise emerged: to keep the border open, the E.U. would allow Northern Ireland to leave its customs union—a symbolic win for Johnson—and, in return, the territory would abide by many E.U. regulations, with the U.K. enforcing any resulting customs checks on the British side of the Irish Sea. “Northern Ireland would de jure be in the U.K.’s customs territory but de facto in the European Union’s,” an E.U. diplomat told the Guardian . The arrangement would require approval, every four years, from the Northern Ireland Assembly. The draft deal bore a heavy resemblance to the European Commission’s initial version of the backstop, which May had rejected as unthinkable. In Brussels, officials quipped that the backstop had become a “frontstop.” On the morning of October 17th, Dodds and Arlene Foster, the D.U.P. leader, accused Johnson of caving in to the E.U. In simultaneous tweets with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, Johnson announced the deal anyway. He boarded a Royal Air Force jet in East London and flew to a European Council meeting in Brussels. Leaders arriving at the meeting allowed themselves a moment of elation. “It’s still the early afternoon—I’m an optimist,” Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš, the Prime Minister of Latvia, said. Emmanuel Macron, of France, said that Europe could now move to a “ nouvelle phase .” In the adrenaline of making a deal, it was easy to look past the effects that a more radical, Johnson-led Brexit was likely to have. Economic assessments of the most recent proposals suggested that the U.K.’s per-capita G.D.P. could be as much as seven per cent lower, in a decade, than if the country stayed in the E.U. Companies in Britain’s aerospace, automotive, chemical, food, and pharmaceutical sectors warned of the damage of straying too far from the bloc’s rules. That evening, in the belly of the monumental Justus Lipsius building, the E.U. leaders gave a press conference that felt like a wake. “It’s a little bit like an old friend that’s going on a journey or an adventure,” Varadkar, the Taoiseach, said. “We really hope it works out for them.” In London, the Brexiteers celebrated. “It is a really good, exciting deal,” Rees-Mogg said. He compared Johnson’s agreement to Tournedos Rossini—a dish of filet mignon, foie gras, truffles, and gravy. Brexit is an uncanny political process because it is an inversion of the way that things were supposed to go. The world was becoming only more connected; money and people flowed. Europe was leading the experiment. And then a population said no. In 2016, Remainers tended to make economic arguments for staying in the E.U., while Leavers spoke about sovereignty and the health of the nation. In truth, it was a matter of instinct for both sides: were you prepared to go on sharing your agency with international forces of unimaginable scale, or did you believe that an old country could somehow reassert itself and claw out its own domain? The question was more philosophical than real. Being a member of the E.U. cost less than two per cent of Britain’s national budget. Most of us did not care. But, once the question was asked, it became fundamental, and the prelude to every future question. Choosing Brexit meant that we would diverge. We would diverge from Europe, and we would diverge from one another. Two days after Johnson made his deal, he brought it to Parliament for a yes-or-no vote. The House of Commons sat on a Saturday for the first time since the outbreak of the Falklands War. Johnson rose to his feet just after 9:30 A . M . His hands were still. He found a sober tone that often eludes him. “If we have been half-hearted Europeans, it follows logically that with part of our hearts—with half our hearts—we feel something else,” he said. “A sense of love and respect for European culture and civilization, of which we are a part.” His deal, he continued, represented a chance to “unite the warring instincts in us all.” It was probably Johnson’s finest speech as Prime Minister. It didn’t count for much. In the afternoon, opposition M.P.s, along with many of the Conservatives purged from the Party the previous month, refused to approve Johnson’s deal until the underlying legislation necessary for Brexit had passed. That night, the Prime Minister was forced to send a letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, requesting another extension. He didn’t want to be dead in a ditch, after all. In a cover note, Johnson blamed M.P.s for failing to “inject momentum” into the process and said that he still believed it was possible for Britain to leave on October 31st. With nine days to go, he tried a final time. The government attempted to force through the entire Withdrawal Agreement Bill, now required for Britain to leave the E.U.—a hundred and ten pages of legal text, and more than three hundred pages of explanatory notes and memorandums—in thirty-six hours of debate. The law is a monster: a latticework of E.U. rules and U.K. legislation, along with provisions governing Britain’s exit fees of thirty-three billion pounds; the rights of the three and a half million E.U. citizens who live in the U.K.; and the new, contentious arrangements for Northern Ireland. I went to the House of Commons to watch. For six hours, opposition M.P.s expressed their fears about workers’ rights and environmental standards. They pointed out that Parliament had been given more time to debate a bill on the use of wild animals in circuses. Ministers were shaky on the details. Nobody pretended that the population would be better off. D.U.P. members were furious. “What I don’t take is a Prime Minister who thinks I can’t read,” Sammy Wilson, the Party’s Brexit spokesperson, told the chamber. The debate ended in a Pyrrhic victory for Johnson. At 7 P . M ., M.P.s voted for the law to move forward—the first time that Parliament had indicated its support for any form of Brexit—fifty-two to forty-eight per cent, the same ratio by which the country split in 2016. Fifteen minutes later, they voted against the government’s plan to legislate at such speed. Johnson sat on the front benches, in the middle of it all. He crossed his arms and hugged himself. He nodded his head up and down and side to side. He raised his legs and banged his heels against the carpet. “How welcome it is—even joyful—that, for the first time in this long saga, this House has accepted its responsibilities, come together, and embraced a deal,” he said. But the way ahead was still blocked. “We will pause this legislation,” Johnson said. He would wait for Europe’s leaders to agree to a further delay. He would ask for a general election, and he would probably win. In the space of a few weeks this fall—in “the compression,” as Baker, of the E.R.G., called it—Johnson made startling political progress. The glue loosened. People diverged. Britain’s constitutional fabric suffered, too, in ways it is too early to understand. But, in the process, Johnson clarified to a great extent what Brexit is going to look like and feel like. The shape of the future is now visible. The uncertainty has receded. The worst is most likely yet to come. ♦

Politics

Brexit

Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump's top economic advisor, told reporters Friday that he only found out about the latest proposed tariffs against China on Thursday night. Trump proposed tariffs Thursday on an additional $100 billion in imports from China. The president has previously called for tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, as well as duties on $50 billion in other Chinese goods. Stock markets declined Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 700 points, or about 3 percent, Friday afternoon. When the Dow was down about 100 points, Kudlow told reporters he thought markets might take the latest trade developments harder than they had. The former CNBC senior contributor has repeatedly said the tariffs may not even go into effect and that they're an early part of a negotiation process between the two nations. Later in the day, he insisted the president was not using tariffs as just a "negotiating card." Kudlow said the U.S. may give China a list of suggestions for trade policy it wants to see change. Asked about Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's comment Friday that a trade war is possible, Kudlow said "we are not in a trade war." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, meanwhile, said Thursday that Trump "absolutely" still believes trade wars are easy to win. Kudlow has increasingly become the face of the administration's response to investors' concerns over Trump's trade policies. A former Wall Street economist and aide in the Reagan administration, Kudlow is known for his free-trade views, but he has pushed the president's more protectionist policies, arguing that China needs to be more open and fair. He told Bloomberg News on Friday that tariff negotiations had not actually begun yet, and that he believes China's response to the administration's complaints "has been unsatisfactory." China swiftly pushed back against Trump's new tariffs. "We will immediately fight back with a major response," a representative of China's Ministry of Commerce said Friday morning. "We have no other choice." CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.

Politics

International Relations

(Reuters) - Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan on Friday said he expects solid growth in the U.S. economy this year and does not expect the economy to fall into recession. Reporting by Lisa Maria Garza in Dallas; Editing by Chris Reese

Economics

Macroeconomics

G7 SUMMIT - UK PM JOHNSON SAYS REMAIN COMMITTED TO ONE COUNTRY TWO SYSTEMS IN HONG KONG

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Other

Slide: 2 / of 2. Caption: Caption: August 2016. Subscribe to WIRED “Does Héctor Prima live around here?” My host’s expression went cool. He was a middle-aged man with a wide face and shoulders and pale stubble on his cheeks and chin that held the promise of a lush beard. In the four hours I’d spent in his home since the evacuated rail from Nové Město had deposited me in Sagrado, he’d been nothing but jovial and expansive. His warmth and his pleasure in having a guest had lulled me into feeling safe. I had overplayed my hand. “Who?” he asked. “I think he’s a writer my sister likes,” I said, motioning vaguely. “She said he was in this part of the country somewhere. But I may have that wrong.” “She is mistaken. Héctor Prima is a pen name. There are rumors that he lives here, but they’re not true. No one knows who really writes his essays. He could be anyone.” “That’s interesting. Is he good?” As if I had not read everything Prima had put on the web. As if I had not read thousands of both analyses of his work and speculations on who he might be. As if I were not, in a sense, a hunter. A stalker. I was driven by an enthusiasm I couldn’t explain, except that when I read his words, I recognized the world he described and my own unhappiness in it. Reading Prima felt like being seen. James S. A. Corey is the pen name of fantasy authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. They both live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The second season of their Syfy series, The Expanse, premieres in February. “He has a following. Strange people. We see them now and again,” my host said with a shrug. “We have a great number of writers and artists, you know. We’re a very vibrant place, now that the money’s come.” “It’s why I’m here,” I said with a smile, and the warmth was back in his eyes. “We have rumba bands. Many, many rumba bands. There was a fight three years ago, when two different bands scheduled concerts on the same day. The police had to come in. You heard about that, maybe?” “I think I did,” I lied. “We are very passionate about our music here,” my host said, nodding to himself and watching me to see how I would react. Whether there was a glimmer of interest in my eyes. It was no different in Nové Město. I knew what he wanted. “Do you play in a band?” I asked. If he had been pleasant and jovial before, now he became incandescent. “A bit. Only a little. I sing, you know. Here, we’ve just put together a new album. Let me play it for you, yes?” “I’d like that,” I said. It was the price of my hunt. I wanted something, and I would accept a great many things I didn’t want in order to get it. I listened and smiled until evening, and then I went out. How to describe Sagrado at night? I came from a city that had known want, but also wealth. Poverty, but also comfort. The richest sections of my home were indistinguishable from the high-income districts of Milan and Paris. Even our slums had pavement on the roads and water in the taps. Sagrado was rising to that level now. The streets were too narrow for cars. The traffic that passed between the thick-stuccoed buildings consisted of people on foot or riding bicycles. Stray dogs watched from the alleyways. The streetlights were built from repurposed emergency solar lamps, bright yellow plastic shaped like downward-facing daisies. Cables hung over the rooftops, piping power from the day’s wind and sunlight stored in hundreds of batteries to homes and clubs, public kitchens and mud-floored dance halls. Drones hummed overhead, carrying glowing advertisements built from recycled medical tablets. In the doorways and on the corners, children and women held platters, stepping out whenever someone came close. I have the best flan you’ve ever tasted. Bean chowder; just try it and you’ll never want anything else. Baklava. Curried egg. Always cheap ingredients. Rarely fish. Never meat. Music filled the air like birdsong. Some live, the musicians sweating over print-fab guitars and hammering on drums made from pottery and plastic. Some recorded but remixed, manipulated, remade with the personality of whoever had speakers loud enough to drown out their neighbors. One club had a child of no more than 6 standing at the door with a false, practiced grin, grabbing at people’s hands and tugging at them to come in. The scars of poverty were everywhere, but few of the wounds. A man in filthy pants and the paper shirt that relief workers hand out sat with his back against a yellow wall, his jaw working in silent but passionate conversation with himself. Another ran down the street shouting after a woman that he hadn’t meant to spend it all and that there would be more next week and why was she so angry when there was going to be more next week? An old woman swept the street outside her little bodega while the ads in her windows painted her face with blue and pink and blue again. Basic income had come to Sagrado five years before, freeing it from want but not, it seemed, from wanting. I stopped to ask the old woman if I was going the right way and showed her the map on my cell. “I am looking for Julia Paraiis.” She made a sour face but pointed me down a side street even narrower than the main thoroughfare. “Five down, blue building. Third floor.” I followed her directions, wondering whether it had been wise for me to come so far unaccompanied. But when I knocked at the door on the third floor of the blue building, the woman who answered looked like the one I’d seen on the net. “What?” she said. “We talked on the forum,” I said. “You’ve come about Héctor?” she said. In answer, I held out my hand, the roll of cash in my palm like an apple. She plucked it from me, her eyes softening. “You’ve been saving,” she said. “It’s everything I have.” “You have more coming,” she said dismissively. “I’ll call for you the day after tomorrow.” And like that, it was done. She closed the door, I walked away, turning back toward the street, and my room, and the hope that this time I would find him. We were a community of a sort. The hunters after Héctor. There were more theories of who and where he was than I could count. I’d looked for him in Rome and Nice. Évora. I’d worked cleaning out brambles and hauling contaminated gravel from an old power plant for extra money to fund my dream of sitting across from the man, of telling him how much his words meant to me. Of breathing the same air. Sagrado had always been one of the possibilities, but never the most likely. I had shared neither my growing suspicions of it nor my searches outside the community on the forums. Nor my discovery of a woman who claimed she could arrange my introduction, if I was ready to pay for it. My host had described my quarters as a studio, but it was less than that: an adobe shed that shared one wall with the house proper and was just large enough for a cot. It was clean, painted a bright and cheerful pink. A sprig of rosemary tied with a white ribbon hung on the wall as a decoration, and it gave the small space a pleasant scent. The pillow was flat. The blanket, rough. If I wanted to use the bathroom or shower, I had to go to the main house and risk another hour or two of my host’s rumba. The sounds of voices and guitars—and once, a man’s enraged shout—mixed with songs of crickets and cicadas. I opened my book, its screen my only light. When I stopped with the heroin—this was, God, 30 years ago—I expected the aches, the illness, the craving deep as bones. Everyone knows how that comes. You anticipate it. Brace against it. Get ready. The thing I didn’t look for was how empty I felt when I was clean. Everyone, always, we are looking for our lives to have meaning. What did the one man say? The Jew? “Those with a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how.’” I think that’s right. When I was a junkie, I had my why. Always my why was to get more junk, and I endured terrors for it. This age, this generation, traded its demons for the void. When I was young we were poor, and we are poor again now but differently. When I was young we were afraid to starve, to be without medicines or homes, and the teeth of it gave us meaning. Now we fear being less important than our neighbors. We lost our junkie’s need, and we don’t know what to put in its place. So we make art or food or music or sport and scream for someone to notice us. We invent new gods and cajole each other into worshipping. All the vapid things that the wealthy did—the surgeries and the fashions and pretension—we understand them now. We are doing all the same things, but not as well, because we have less and we’re still new at it. This? It’s the emptiness of our time, and the only thing worse is everything that came before it. I let my eyes drift closed. The deaths of some extreme alpinists dominated the midmorning news cycle. Images of the mountain range they had been climbing appeared on the newsfeeds like blossoms in springtime, overlaid with swaths of color to track their intended path through the area with the most landslides. A woman whose father died on the mountain—dark-haired and fighting back tears as she stood before the cameras—spoke the customary phrases. Climbing meant everything to him. He died doing what he loved. I curled under the rough blanket, listening to the sounds of Sagrado’s streets and feeling the same uncomfortable mix of schadenfreude and envy that usually traveled in the wake of these optional tragedies. The romance of death by adventure. I faced a less newsworthy ordeal. Three long weeks stretched out before the next disbursement, leaving a gap of 14 days with nowhere to sleep, no ticket back to my flat in Nové Město, no way to buy my own food, and only water from public fountains. I knew tricks, of course. Ever since the rolls began, poor had meant poor management. Not everyone possessed the skills to shepherd their allotment all the way to the next one. The temptation to buy a cigar or a steak in the first days after the money came translated itself into missed meals and fasting in the long, brutal last days before the next payment, and sympathy came thin on the ground. The ancient lie that the blame for poverty belonged wholly to the poor had changed to truth now. Experience had taught me that the need to be more important than our neighbors could be exploited to sustain someone through the thinnest times. If I was careful. I strolled through the evening streets much as before, accepting the offered tidbits only here and there. Every third one. Or less. I smiled and nodded to the men and girls that haunted the little restaurants and family kitchens, encouraging but not too encouraging. And never grateful. We exchanged the ragged sustenance I needed for the illusion they needed: that someone cared what they did. Will feed for applause. If I didn’t convince them I was enjoying their rice cake or stew more than whatever their neighbors were offering up, my end of our unspoken bargain failed. And that led quickly to the samples shifting out of my reach. Everyone wanted to feel desired. No one cared about someone who came only out of need. And so, like a con artist, I pretended not to need. Pretended to appreciate what they gave me. It thrilled me. I could have been safe in Nové Město with food enough, water enough, warmth enough. Instead, I lived by my wits and savored the suspense, the metal-sharp taste of not knowing how I would survive. Of the moment just before the revelation. This Julia Paraiis who claimed to have the information I sought could as easily be a grifter preying on my credulity. Or I might leave Sagrado with a secret. An experience I’d been searching for over the course of years. The dead alpinists, the people offering food on the corners, the bands coaxing us all to come dance to their music, my host and his awful rumba, and me. All of us struggled against the same void, and Héctor Prima sang our longing like a siren. I passed one day and then the next, each hour feeling longer than the one before. And more charged with promise. With the lengthening evening of the second day, my anticipation stuttered, shifted, and grew darker. I lay on my rented cot, afraid to sleep in case I missed Julia Paraiis or some agent of hers. No one came. I woke on the morning of the third day caught between embarrassment and regret. I told myself that she might still come, and I tried not to feel my humiliation. I managed for almost an hour before it bloomed into rage. As I marched down the street from my host’s house, I felt the eyes of Sagrado watching me. The stranger who had been haunting them for the past few days, with no apparent agenda, now alive with outrage. Suspicions welled up in half-recognized faces. The old woman at the bodega crossed her scarred arms and shook her head at me. A girl who had offered me a sample of her father’s bean soup the night before skipped along after me, laughing at my distress. What I meant to them was changing. It would lead to hunger later, but the idea of later had abandoned me. I went back to the blue building. Her door looked shabbier in the daylight and in my state of mind. Scratches and streaks of orange paint that I hadn’t noticed before seemed obvious now. I knocked first, shouted her name. Noises came—footsteps, the creak of a board, voices—maybe from the other side of the door, maybe from the other apartments. Then I pounded, putting my shoulder into it and bruising my knuckles. I didn’t recognize the man who opened the door. He stared at me, his jaw set, his eyes hard. White button-down shirt with stains in the armpits. “Where’s Julia?” I said. “Gone,” the man said. “You should go too.” “Are you Héctor Prima?” It landed. A flinch in the man’s eyes, like he’d suffered a little electric shock. “There’s no Héctor here. You should go.” He tried to close the door, but I pushed in. My voice shook and I couldn’t say whether with fear or excitement. “When is she coming back?” He shoved me but to no effect. “I tracked Prima here. To this town. Julia said she knew him. Said she’d make the introduction if I paid her. Well, I paid her. Now I want the introduction.” “No Héctor Prima.” “I will go to every fucking person in this town and tell them what happened. I will stay outside your door for weeks. Months. As long as it takes.” The man looked down, stepped back. The room on the other side of the door looked as small as my own flat. As worn and sweat-limp. I looked around for some sign of her, but found nothing. The man refused to meet my eyes, and his breath grew ragged as I looked through his rooms, or else hers. “Where is she?” “Gone,” he said. “When will she be back?” I heard the rage in my own voice, and it sounded like whining. “She won’t.” “Why not?” Now he looked at me straight on, eye to eye. “Because she brought you here. I kicked her out. She took your money with her. She took my money too. You can’t talk about Héctor Prima around here. If you do … if you do, it all stops.” I sat on his couch. It squeaked and wheezed under me. “Are you him?” “No,” the man said, then heaved a sigh. He sat on the floor, his back against the wall. With his knees up, his arms wrapped around them, he looked fragile. “But I write down what … he says. I don’t tell. And if it comes out I was doing it, he’ll stop talking to me.” “I don’t understand,” I said, even though I almost did. The man shook his head. “Was a few years ago. The rolls had just opened, and everybody was getting used to getting payments. Starting to think maybe it would last, you know? Like it wouldn’t go away. Everybody happy, right? Because we all got money now. Only this one old dog says it’s all bullshit, or kind of. I didn’t understand, and then later I started to. Made a point of hanging out, listening. Talking with, you know? And then … started writing it down. Posting it. Made up a name.” “Héctor Prima.” He nodded. “Was because it said something. Only then it got where people read it. A lot of people. Eight hundred thousand views when I put one up, and then 8 million the next, yeah? And some of them are like you. I got scared. I told Julia about it, and she figured she could sell me out.” “To someone like me,” I said. “If it gets back what I’m doing, won’t be any Héctor Prima, because there won’t be any more talking. So you can’t tell anyone.” “Will you introduce me?” I asked. But I already knew the answer. The man and I sat together in silence for a time. I felt a kinship between us, a shared heroism that outranked right or wrong. He and I both shouted against an overpowering emptiness that most people didn’t recognize. He’d lifted a betrayal of trust and privacy to the level of art. I had committed to my enthusiasm for the work past the point of being a stalker. We transgressed together, each dependent upon the other for the sense that something in our lives mattered. We were not well, but at least we were sick in company. I sniffed back my tears and stood. His eyes tracked me as I walked to the blue door, opened it. “Have you ever heard of the hedonic treadmill?” I asked. “What?” “Look it up. Maybe mention it to him. I was going to talk to him about it,” I said. And then, stepping out to the hallway, “Keep up the good work.” At the intersection I stopped and sat on the curb. The girl who had skipped along behind me was in the mouth of an alleyway with three other children. They were playing a game with stones and a length of twine. The old woman swept the dust of her shop into the street. The late-morning sun turned the roofs of the town silver and too bright to look at for long. I couldn’t bring myself to believe how little time had passed. An hour—less than an hour—and a lifetime. The story of my life had reached an inflection point here at the roadside in a little town far from my home. I had spent years tracking Héctor Prima, and I would never seek him out again. I would be homeless until the next disbursement came, and then I’d be hungry until I made up the cost of my train ticket home. I would suffer, but I would suffer for a reason, so the prospect wasn’t so bad. I took out my book, turned up the contrast against the brightness of the day, and opened my folder of Prima’s work, skimming over the words without taking them in until a passage caught my eye. Children still starve. When I was young we starved from poverty. Now we starve from having parents who spend their allotment on drink or drugs or pretty clothes that make them seem to have more than they do. Bad parents. Bad luck. Bad ideas. Money only ever fixes the troubles that money can fix. All the others stay on. Yes, yes, yes, we suffer less. We suffer differently. But we still suffer over smaller things, and it distracts us. We begin to forget how precious butter and bread are. How desperate we once were to have them. Spices that meant something deep to my mother or me? In a generation they’ll only be tastes. They won’t mean anything more than their moment against the tongue. We should nourish our children not just with food but with what food means. What it used to mean. We should cherish the memories of our poverty. Ghosts and bones are made to remind us to take joy in not being dead yet. A bicycle hummed down the street, the chain clacking as it passed me. The old woman’s broom hissed against the pavement. Music played somewhere close, the bass outreaching all the other sounds. And I sat and held something precious in my hands. Something more fragile than I had guessed when I came to Sagrado. I had chosen not to break it, and as much as it had meant to me when I came, it meant more to me now. I’d come to find Héctor Prima, and I would leave without hope of coming back or guiding my fellow hunters down the track to find him. And I wondered: When I got home, what would I do instead? I must have made a noise, because the old woman stopped and stared at me. She lifted her chin in rough greeting. “You all right, cousin?” “Fine,” I said. And then, “A little hungry.”

Language

Spanish

Jennifer Lopez took the stage Saturday night at a Super Bowl party and performed a rousing tribute to Prince. JLo performed "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" at the Armory in Minneapolis ... an homage to Minneapolis' home town hero, who died in April, 2016. The concert -- thrown by DIRECTV NOW -- raised money for Hurricane Maria victims. During the concert, she gave a shout out to BF Alex Rodriguez, with whom she was celebrating their 1-year anniversary. During her costume changes DJ Khaled came out and worked the audience into even more of a frenzy. Good times.

Entertainment

Television

The latest trailer for Matthew Weiner’s The Romanoffs offers a clearer look at the series, which centers on people who are convinced they’re descendents of the storied Russian royal family. The show, which was filmed on location on three continents, is set to premiere on Amazon Prime on October 12. Each of the eight episodes will tell a separate story set in a different country, with no overlapping actors or plot points — except, of course, a purported link to the Romanoffs. That theme is driven home in the new footage, as the characters (all played by recognizable faces) repeatedly claim — and refute — their supposed heritage. Along with the trailer, details for the first two episodes have been released. Episode one, “The Violet Hour,” stars Aaron Eckhart and Marthe Keller; episode two, “The Royal We,” stars Corey Stoll, Kerry Bishe, and Noah Wyle. Other stars who will appear on the series include Isabelle Huppert, Diane Lane, Paul Reiser, Kathryn Hahn, and Mad Men alums John Slattery and Christina Hendricks, many of whom we see glimpses of in the trailer. The Romanoffs is Weiner’s first project since Mad Men, which made its bow in 2015 — though Weiner was more recently in the news over allegations of sexual harassment from Mad Men writer Kater Gordon. In late 2017, Gordon said that Weiner tried to pressure her into letting him see her naked when they worked together on the show, and that she had not worked in TV since being let go from its writing staff. Writer Marti Noxon, who was a consulting producer on Mad Men, later tweeted her support for Gordon, writing that Weiner was an “emotional terrorist.” Weiner has denied the allegations.

Television

Entertainment

100 days. 42 press briefings. 2,346 questions. 1,983 minutes. NBC News analyzed all of Sean Spicer's on-camera press briefings in the first 100 days as President Donald Trump's press secretary. Here's what we found: Spicer has fielded more than 2,000 questions about a vast number of topics over the past 100 days, but a few issues jump out as the ones he's most often had to juggle. Atop the list: Possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election and President Trump's countercharge that he was wiretapped by the Obama administration. According to NBC News' database of all questions asked of Spicer in the formal press briefings since January 21, Russia has been mentioned by reporters nearly 150 times. House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes has also been named over 100 times in reporters' questions, but Spicer has only addressed Nunes 45 times in his responses. Nunes stepped aside from the House probe of Russian interference after accusations that he may have mishandled classified information. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who have both come under fire for ties to Russian interests, have been mentioned 49 and 35 times, respectively. And, of course, Trump's favorite method of communication has been fodder for inquiry as well. The word "tweet" earned more than 100 mentions from questioners. In his responses, Spicer has mentioned Russia almost the same number of times as the reporters grilling him. But he's been far less likely to invoke wiretapping or discuss Nunes or Manafort by name. On the other hand, Spicer has mentioned top Trump policy items far more than reporters have. He's brought up the words "budget" about 60 times more than questioners, and he's mentioned "Obamacare" and "health care" more than twice as often as the press has. Of the 2,346 questions Spicer has been asked by members of the press, he took the most questions during his first formal briefing on January 23: 101. Spicer has been asked an average of 55 questions per briefing over the first 100 days. On February 2, Spicer took the least number of questions at 22. The day before, February 1, Michael Flynn said the White House was putting Iran "on notice," an apparent retaliation for a recent missile launch which the former national security adviser deemed "provocative." Spicer may draw a lot of attention in the news for tense exchanges and missteps during his briefings, but that's not the only thing people are searching when they Internet-stalk the press secretary. A Tweetstorm rage that has apparently extended over several years and was resurfaced early on in the first 100 days, shows Spicer truly hating on Dippin' Dots — the flash-frozen ice cream — for deeming itself the "Ice Cream of the Future." "Dippin Dots Sean Spicer" was part of the top Google searches in the first 100 days. In addition to the ice cream snack, Melissa McCarthy's "SNL" appearances as a fiery Spicer bubbles up as the No. 1 searched phrase. "Sean Spicer Hitler" and "Sean Spicer gum" are in the top five. The average length of Spicer's briefings is 48 minutes beginning at around 1 p.m. ET, with the shortest briefing clocking in at just 24 minutes. Spicer's first formal briefing was more than an hour long, but it wasn't until more than a month later that another briefing surpassed the hour mark. Of the 42 official briefings Spicer has given, eight have broken 60 minutes. Behind the podium, Spicer has taken full advantage of the English language, often using an array of adjectives to describe White House positions — and, at times, other, unknown languages (e.g. Lasterday: still not a word). Some of his choice options include "great," which Spicer used over 180 times; "strong," used more than 80 times, and "tremendous," used nearly 40 times. "Phenomenal," "extraordinary" and "robust" are also at the top of his personal glossary. Spicer's 42 press briefings fall in line with the number of briefings given by former press secretaries in the first 100 days. President Obama's first-term press secretary Robert Gibbs gave 40 solo briefings in the first 100 days and participated in an additional six with other administration officials. Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush's press secretary, gave 38 briefings in the first 100 days; Scott McClellan gave an additional three.

Politics

Government

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (Reuters) - Togo’s trailblazing cross-country skier Mathilde-Amivi Petitjean is glad she is no longer the “new kid on the block” at the Winter Olympics and says the record number of African countries competing in Pyeongchang proves the continent is warming to sports on snow and ice. Togo was one of only three African nations to compete in Sochi four years ago but with eight sending athletes to the Games in South Korea, Petitjean said the media spotlight is less intense this time around. “It’s great to have more and more African countries participating in the Games,” she told a news conference on Monday. “In Sochi I was the new kid on the block, first time that Togo was represented, so it was exciting and very new. “This time it’s my second Winter Games .... so I’m not the new kid on the block anymore. “All sorts of other African athletes have now joined and are newcomers and that’s very helpful. I feel a little more at ease. “I’m not as timid any more and I’m very happy about not being so visible so I can concentrate much more on my competitions.” Petitjean took up skiing after moving to France from Togo when she was a child. The Olympic journey had been hard financially, she said, with Togo offering very little support. Despite the obvious challenges for Africa in producing winter sports athletes, Petitjean said nothing should hold the continent back from trying to carve out a place for itself at the Winter Games. “It’s not because there’s no snow in my country that there shouldn’t be any skiing,” added Petitjean, who finished 59th in the sprint classic and 83rd in the 10km free in Pyeongchang. “Africans live elsewhere in the world, not only in Africa, and they have the right to represent their country even if they don’t live in their mother country. “We are, after all, in the 21st century. There are no borders. Anyone should be able to do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do, and that’s fabulous.” Chef de mission Hyacinthe Edorh said raising the profile of winter sports in Togo was a tough task. “In Africa, basically people are only interested in football,” he added. “But there are Togolese who live abroad and we would like to show the Togolese population that there are other things besides basketball and football. “Skiing is a sport one can practise in Asia, in Europe and why not in Africa as well?” Editing by Amlan Chakraborty

Sports

Olympics

So… guys? Can we talk about something for a second? It’s day 4 of Waymo v. Uber, and I’m still not entirely clear on what Waymo’s case is. Yes, it’s a case where a former Google engineer absconded with over 9 gigabytes of data, transferred it to his laptop, backed it up onto disks that he put in his closet, sent texts about shredding evidence, and deleted texts about shredding evidence, and is also now expected to invoke the Fifth Amendment on the stand. And yes, when Uber acquired his company, it indemnified him for intellectual property claims as part of the acquisition. But even with all that, I’m not sure Waymo is going to win because I can’t figure out the case they’re putting on. It’s a trade secrets case, and because trade secrets lose trade secret status when they become public, portions of the trial were always going to be under seal. Waymo originally asserted that over a hundred trade secrets had been misappropriated by Uber — that’s been narrowed down to eight. We don’t know what these trade secrets are. They could be circuit boards, they could be the placement of components on the circuit boards, they could maybe even be machine learning data sets. Trade secrets are a pretty broad category: they can be a “formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process.” We, the public, are not allowed to see what those eight secrets are. But, uh, it’s a little weird that we have literally no idea even what general ballpark they’re in? I mean, given that only 45 minutes of Waymo time have been under seal? Can you really explain eight self-driving car trade secrets in 45 minutes? And then there’s the part where Anthony Levandowski is not on trial, Uber is. Even if Levandowski took 14,000 confidential documents, that doesn’t mean that Uber did something wrong — there isn’t a clear link to how those documents got onto Uber computers or were used in Uber self-driving cars. Though, sure, there isn’t clear evidence the documents didn’t find their way over to Uber. A lot of things got deleted, not everything was forensically recoverable, and also, a hard drive named “NEWCO” was connected to Anthony Levandowski’s personal laptop in January 2016. NEWCO was Uber’s code name for the company that became Ottomotto. No one was able to find and examine that hard drive. Things feel off, but still, this is Waymo’s case to make and their burden of proof to carry. And I’m really confused about what their case even is. One part of what they’re supposed to prove is that the trade secrets they assert are actually trade secrets. Again, the trade secret could be a schematic, a circuit board, a process or a technique, but regardless, the company who owns the trade secret has to be taking reasonable care to keep the secret a secret. Part of Uber’s case appears to be that Google doesn’t take reasonable care to keep its LIDAR a secret because Waymo’s LIDAR technical lead Pierre-Yves Droz took one of the old LIDARs with him to Burning Man. But let’s not even get into that now. A trade secret also has to be valuable and it has to be valuable because it’s a secret. It also can’t be “readily ascertainable by proper means” by other people who might get something out of its value — in other words, if you can legally reverse engineer the technology after buying it off the shelf, that technology isn’t a trade secret. Whatever these Google trade secrets are, there’s some convincing testimony that they’re worth stealing. Today, lawyers trotted Droz out to testify about the differences between Waymo’s secretive, proprietary LIDAR and Velodyne’s off-the-shelf LIDAR. Grizzly Bear 3 (GBR-3) — which he had helped develop through many iterations over many years — is long-distance, where Velodyne is “medium-distance,” he said. While both GBR-3 and Velodyne LIDAR featured 64 lasers, GBR-3 wasn’t just more powerful, it’s much, much cheaper — it costs about $4,000 where Velodyne’s is $75,000. If there’s a secret sauce that gives Waymo that edge, it’s a valuable one. But Uber has an email from Sasha Zbrozek, a Google engineer, who wrote, “It’s all electronics designs, schematics and PCB layouts and the component library for their creation. It was considered low-value enough that we had even considered hosting it off Google infrastructure.” Zbrozek took the stand today to clarify that he thought hardware was treated like a “second-class citizen” compared to software and algorithms — that didn’t mean that hardware wasn’t valuable at all. It’s still a weird, conflicting statement! But let’s set that part aside. I’m much more weirded out by something else: Waymo keeps throwing out red herrings about their trade secrets during trial. When the public came back into the courtroom after the sealed portion of Waymo’s opening statements, Judge Alsup chided them for putting up “stuff that looked like promotional videos” in the sealed courtroom. That shouldn’t have been under seal, he said. “In fact, look, I want to say, this is for you newspaper reporters out there, in the sealed portion, only about two-thirds of it deserved to be sealed,” the judge added, pointedly. “There were things about LIDAR, there were things about — like these promotional ads that you’ve put up there that the public could have seen.” Alsup told Waymo lawyers that they were “leaving the impression with the jury that you invented LIDAR, that you invented self-driving cars, and that that’s what this case is about.” Mindful of his rant, Waymo was careful to mention that Google did not invent LIDAR later that day. And then there’s the circuit board from the Gorilla Circuits email. Back in December 2016, a manufacturer of printed circuit boards (PCBs) accidentally forwarded an email to a Waymo engineer that was for Ottomotto — the company that Anthony Levandowski had founded after suddenly quitting Google, and had then been acquired by Uber. The email contained a zip file labeled “manufacturing docs for Fuji laser,” containing schematics and all the other information necessary to manufacture a PCB. The engineer opened up the email and got suspicious about a drawing of a circuit board. It looked awfully like a PCB in one of Waymo’s LIDARs. He showed it to his manager. The matter was swiftly escalated up the food chain, each person agreeing that the circuit board looked a lot like theirs. The gallery was not allowed to see the drawing in question, which is under seal. Well, that sounds bad, doesn’t it? Here’s the thing. In the break, when the jury had gone into the jury room, Judge Alsup took a moment to berate the lawyers for keeping the drawing under seal. It had to do with “Trade Secret 96,” but 96 was one of the many dozens that got tossed out as Waymo’s case was narrowed down to the final eight. “You know, you have been attached to that Gorilla Circuits email,” said Alsup. “You have squirmed left and right trying to figure out some way to build your case around it. And even though 96 got thrown into oblivion, you’re still trying to find some way to screw that into the case and it has nothing to do with any trade secret that’s in play.” Look, it’s a trade secrets case. I walked into this fully expecting to be locked out of the courtroom for huge portions, for the very core of this case to remain an unknowable black box. And yes, the core of the case is still a black box, but it’s a black box the size of a Tamagotchi and I would very much like to know why. Waymo took another 15 minutes of sealed testimony today. They seem to be on track to finish presenting their evidence tomorrow, giving Uber a chance to start their case on Monday. Both sides have physical LIDARs admitted as exhibits in court and are maybe going to show them to the jury? Maybe the general direction of questions will make more sense to me tomorrow. For now, I’m just extremely confused.

Technology

Self-Driving Cars

Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Glasgow-born, Berlin-based artist Katie Paterson has spent the past three years collecting wood samples from around the world, trying to check off all the items on her tree species wish list. In addition to samples of common tree species, like ginkgos, banyans, redwoods, Phoenix palms, and Lebanese cedars, she scored a piece of a nearly 5,000-year-old Methuselah tree, one of the world’s oldest living organisms; a scrap of railroad tie taken from the Panama Canal Railway, which claimed the lives of thousands of workers during its construction; and wood salvaged from the Atlantic City boardwalk, devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. These are just a few of the 10,000 types of wood that make up “Hollow,” “a microcosmos of all the world’s trees,” as Paterson calls this newest installation. The public artwork, now permanently sited in Bristol’s historic Royal Fort Gardens, was commissioned by the University of Bristol and made in collaboration with the architects Zeller & Moye. From the outside, “Hollow” looks a bit like a wigwam assembled from giant Jenga pieces. Inside, through a little opening in the façade, thousands of wooden rods of varying sizes protrude from the ceiling and floor like stalactites and stalagmites. Two people can fit in this “modernist grotto,” as the architects put it, “an introverted and meditative space where, whether sitting or standing, one finds oneself embraced by history.” Apertures in the vaulted roof let in sun, mimicking the dappled natural light of a forest canopy. The effect is spectacular, both visually and conceptually. The single sculpture encompasses all of arboreal history: It features petrified wood from an extinct species thought to be 390 million years old, samples of the world’s oldest known trees, and bits of some of the youngest. It contains human stories, too: The Indian Banyan Tree, under which Buddha achieved enlightenment, and the Japanese Ginkgo tree in Hiroshima, which survived World War II. And almost every country on the planet is represented. Paterson received donations from the Herbario Nacional de México, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Kyoto University, and the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard. Paterson’s past projects have been similarly ambitious in their fusion of the natural sciences with sculpture and installation — for one project, she created a map of 27,000 known dead stars. Katie Paterson’s “Hollow” is permanently on view at the Royal Fort Gardens (Royal Fort House, Bristol, City of Bristol).  h/t DesignBoom 

Lifestyle

Culture

Even a vacation can’t stop Josh Altman from closing a real estate deal. The Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles star jetted off to Oahu, Hawaii, for a vacation with his wife, Heather, and their one-year-old daughter Alexis (Lexi). But when business called during a walk on the beach with Lexi, Altman realized his cell phone battery was running low, so he had to improvise. Luckily, there are still a few working pay phones scattered across the island’s beaches. “Early morning walk on the beach with Lexi,” the Bravo star wrote on Instagram. “Cell running low on battery so I had negotiate a deal old school style and found the last pay phone.” He posted a sweet photo of himself holding onto his little girl while making the crucial call outside a Four Seasons resort. During their family trip, the Altmans are staying at the Four Seasons Oahu at Ko Olina, where they’ve been soaking up the sun on the beach and letting Lexi feed the fish in a pond on the property. “Room with a view good enough for Lexi,” Altman captioned a photo of their balcony view of the ocean on his Instagram story. WATCH THIS: 5 Tips to Flipping a House with Josh Altman And although their getaway is classified as a vacation, it seems it’s not all play. Altman is not only using pay phones to close million dollar real estate deals, but he’s also still posting newly listed properties on his Instagram. Million Dollar Listing L.A. season 14 premiers November 10 on Bravo.

Other

Other

For years, Lenny Hanson has watched in alarm as the price of a drug she takes has ticked steadily upward, doubling in the past five years to more than $200 a month today. The product, Vagifem, is one form of a drug, estradiol, that is used to improve women’s sex lives by treating a painful, often unspoken condition experienced by older women: a dry vagina, which can cause uncomfortable intercourse and complications like urinary tract infections. Estradiol has been around for decades, but the price of the various creams, vaginal rings and tablets that contain the drug has climbed steadily in recent years, according to an analysis by the consumer website GoodRx. And insurance coverage is spotty — many plans refuse to cover some products or require that patients pay high out-of-pocket costs. While women privately fume about the costs, drug makers have been able to raise their prices without a public outcry in part because the topic — women’s sex lives and their vaginas — is still pretty much taboo. “Unlike EpiPen, women are not going to be rising up and saying, ‘My vagina is dry and I don’t want to pay 2,000 to 3,000 dollars a year,’” said Dr. Lauren Streicher, the medical director of the Northwestern Medicine Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause. This week, the F.D.A. approved a new estradiol product, Imvexxy, a development that in any other market may have offered hope for some price relief. But in the upside-down world of prescription drugs, that isn’t happening. Imvexxy’s manufacturer, TherapeuticsMD, said that its new product would be sold at “parity” with others on the market, and did not elaborate. The story of estradiol products echoes others in the prescription-drug market, where older medicines like insulin or multiple sclerosis drugs have become more expensive, even when rivals are introduced and should make prices competitive. The increases often result from secret, back-channel deals: Drug companies, pharmacy benefit managers and insurers all play a part, profiting along the way. Drug makers set higher prices because of the way they sell their product to insurers and employers. Instead of offering an upfront discount, companies pay after-the-fact rebates that are negotiated with pharmacy benefit managers like CVS Health or Express Scripts. These managers keep a percentage of those rebates, which are generally not shared with consumers, creating what some have described as a perverse incentive to keep list prices high. The New York Times would like to hear from people about their experiences paying for prescription drugs. Insurers, on the other hand, say drug companies keep raising prices to make more money. Health insurance has traditionally covered the bulk of patients’ drug costs, so until recently, prices weren’t on people’s radars — drugs weren’t seen as a consumer product like, say, breakfast cereal. But as manufacturers have raised prices, insurers have passed a larger share of the costs to patients in the form of high deductibles or co-payments. Drugs to treat sexual health, like the estradiol products, are frequently placed on a higher formulary tier, meaning some patients have to pay as much as half of the list price, said Adam J. Fein, chief executive of the Drug Channels Institute, which studies the industry. “Although it is technically covered by the insurance company, your insurer is paying very little for the drug,” Mr. Fein said. The prices for estradiol products for vaginal use have risen significantly over the past five years. The price of a tube of Estrace cream has more than doubled, to a pharmacy cash price of $372.17 in May of this year, from $183.98 in January 2013, according to GoodRx. The Estring, a ring that is inserted in the vagina for three months, cost $520.66 in May, compared to $284.11 in January 2013. Representatives for drug manufacturers said their products were generally covered by insurance and that they offered assistance to patients who could not afford them. “These are medications that many women have to take for several years,” said Thomas Goetz, chief of research at GoodRx. For those with poor insurance coverage or none at all, "people are being exposed to what can be profound increases in price.” Ms. Hanson, 71, of San Francisco, has resorted to ordering her drug from overseas at a cost of about $80 for a three-month supply. “It’s absurd,” she said. The newcomer, Imvexxy, has a few features that its manufacturer hopes will distinguish it. It comes in a lower, 4 microgram dose (the lowest Vagifem dose is 10 micrograms). The soft gel capsule — in pink, naturally — is manually placed in the vagina, compared to Vagifem, which is used with a disposable plastic applicator. In 2017, TherapeuticsMD announced that the F.D.A. had turned down its application for approval because there was no long-term safety data beyond 12 weeks of use. The company later submitted a review of safety data on existing estradiol products to demonstrate that, like the others, its own product did not pose a risk. The company has said 32 million women suffer from the condition that their drug addresses, but only about 7 percent — or 2.3 million — receive treatment. Sales for menopause-related treatments totaled nearly $3 billion in 2017, according to IQVIA, which tracks drug sales. Some said Imvexxy had a role to play. Many women are worried about taking estrogen because of earlier studies that showed taking oral hormones carried serious risks. The lower dose may allay those concerns, although other vaginal estradiol products have also shown that they do not significantly increase estrogen levels throughout the body. All of the products, including Imvexxy, carry an F.D.A. warning that they can increase the chance of developing cancer and other serious disorders. But several women’s health experts said those risks have never been substantiated and they have been lobbying the F.D.A. to remove it. “Hopefully this will be a solution for the woman with breast cancer who is going without,” Dr. Streicher said. TherapeuticsMD paid her to lead one focus group for women that discussed sexual health and did not mention Imvexxy, she said. “If we were having this conversation in the context of drug prices being reasonable across the board — hey, good news,” said Cynthia Pearson, the executive director of the National Women’s Health Network, a consumer group. “It’s just infuriating that the price has gone up and up and up for no good reason.” She said the issue has not gotten more attention because “how many people will say ‘vagina’ in a public setting?” Some companies are using a playful marketing approach, signaling the issue is not as taboo as it once was. The website of Imvexxy — which rhymes with sexy — features an image of a ripe, juicy peach, boasting the product is “distinctly designed for sweet relief.” A similar product, Intrarosa, which does not contain estradiol, features a photo of a nude older woman, her head thrown back in pleasure. Some of these products may soon come down in price. In October 2016, a generic of Vagifem, called Yuvafem, entered the market at a slightly reduced list price. Then, in July of last year, Teva Pharmaceuticals began selling a second generic at an even cheaper price. But the pharmacy cash price for Teva’s product — $163.91 for a month’s supply of eight tablets in May — is still higher than what Vagifem cost in 2015, according to the GoodRx analysis. If more generic manufacturers enter the market, the price could tumble more and Vagifem could become an inexpensive drug like many cholesterol or blood pressure medicines. The same could become true for Estrace cream, which lost its patent protection at the end of last year and now has several generic competitors. With two generics for Vagifem now available, the drug companies are most likely negotiating big discounts with insurers, meaning patients with coverage may see their costs drop. Elizabeth Traynor, an illustrator in Guntersville, Alabama, had tried virtually every estradiol product and balked at the prices, frequently doing without. But she recently called her insurer, the Government Employees Health Association, and learned she would have to pay $20 for a three-month supply of Yuvafem. “It’s about time,” she said. “Hooray!” Estradiol has been around for so long that it has survived several rounds of debate over high prices. In 1959, a Senate inquiry found that the drug maker Schering, now part of Merck, had marked up estradiol — which comes in many forms — by more than 7,000 percent over the cost of materials. In an echo of modern-day industry talking points, a Schering executive was quoted in an article in The New York Times, saying the high prices were necessary to finance new medical research. “The consumers of today must contribute to the benefits which the future will bring,” the drug executive said.

Science

Biology

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said on Thursday its quarterly revenue climbed 61 percent, beating analysts' estimates, helped by growth in its core e-commerce business. The firm, headed by billionaire entrepreneur Jack Ma, posted 55.12 billion yuan ($8.34 billion) in revenue for the July-September quarter, above a 52.2 billion yuan forecast by analysts polled by Reuters. Net income more than doubled from a year ago to 17.41 billion yuan, growing at a faster clip than the previous two quarters. The second quarter is often slower for Alibaba as it prepares for the annual blockbuster Singles' Day event on Nov. 11, a sales bonanza that shifts more goods than the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales days in the United States combined. Alibaba said revenue from its core e-commerce business hit 46.46 billion yuan, representing a 63 percent rise from the same quarter a year earlier.

Technology

E-commerce

Aug 11 (Reuters) - Refresco Group NV : * Q2 revenue 558.7 million euros ($623.62 million) versus 548.4 million euros year ago * Q2 EBITDA 66.6 million euros versus 62.3 million euros year ago * Q2 net profit 28.9 million euros versus 5.4 million euros year ago * Group volume of 1,703.3 million liters (Q2 2015: 1,672.2 million liters), an increase of 1.9 pct * Confirms medium term guidance of low to mid-single digit average organic annual volume growth * Expects volumes to be below the medium term guidance for 2016 * Gross profit margin per liter in the medium term may come down marginally due to product mix effects, based on current outlook on the market and competitive environment * Expect the gross profit margin per liter for 2016 to remain flat compared to the gross profit margin per liter over 2015 (14.2 eurocents) Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ($1 = 0.8959 euros) (Gdynia Newsroom)

Technology

Software

A squirrel with a death wish was nearly run over during the parallel giant slalom at the 2018 Winter Olympics on Saturday. Austrian snowboarder Daniela Ulbing was in the middle of her run when a squirrel suddenly ran onto the slope just inches in front of her snowboard. WATCH OUT SQUIRREL. pic.twitter.com/rtQ94MQeDj — NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 24, 2018 In typical squirrel fashion, the rodent came face-to-face with the moment of impact before deciding the slalom course was a bad place to be. It turned around only after nearly colliding with Ulbing.  Though the moment was quick, it does appear that Ulbing spotted the squirrel, and possibly adjusted her path to avoid a collision. The world thanks you, Ulbing. Golden medal to the squirrel who almost died!#WinterOlympics — Liz Evans (@The_Writer_Liz) February 24, 2018 Squirrel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Alive!!!!!!!!! #PeyongChang2018 #PyeongChang2018 #snowboard #Olympics #Olympics2018 pic.twitter.com/bCER0fGajd — Yongwon Lee (@Ingyowon411) February 24, 2018 Close up look of the squirrel. pic.twitter.com/y5T07mlhAt — Carlos Concha (@closgolfing) February 24, 2018 pic.twitter.com/IFwLwFdMKL — Queen of Typos (@mfore0142) February 24, 2018 Thats 1 lucky squirrel #PyeongChang2018 — Tom Hockman (@Tom_Hockman) February 24, 2018 Squirrel runs onto the course in the parallel giant slalom while the athletes are in full flight. #pyeongchang2018It’s alive. Just. pic.twitter.com/ggPMgFz14G — Aimee Lewis (@aimee_lou_lewis) February 24, 2018 Who let the squirrel loose on the snowboard course? #Olympics2018 — Sophia (@sm2am) February 24, 2018

Sports

Olympics

Next Wednesday, September 6, will see the moon reach fullness at 3:02 a.m. EST. Overall, this lunation is our first sign of the colder months (and the effort they so often require) to come. But first, let's take a closer look at this moon's folklore. Although the September full moon is referred to as the Harvest Moon in nature-based faiths, but that name also has roots in agrarian life — and, in that field, it has a slightly different definition. According to the Farmer's Almanac, the "Harvest Moon" actually describes whatever full moon arrives nearest to the fall equinox, or the time of year when crops are traditionally harvested. Most years, that is the full moon of September, but this year is an exception. October's full moon (which, spiritually speaking, is known as the Hunter Moon or the Blood Moon) will rise 13 days after the equinox, putting it three days closer than September's full moon. Nevertheless, the Harvest Moon that always takes place in September is still worthy of this name, as it reminds us of what we've been working toward all year — and what remains to be done before 2018 begins. If you observed August's full moon, you spent last month in preparation mode, executing those needling (but necessary) tasks at work, handling household chores, and tackling difficult conversations with your friends or partner. Now you get to see that hard work pay off. New opportunities may arise, now that your schedule and closet are clearer than they were last month. You might even have a little time to relax next week, if only for a day or two. No full moon comes without a warning of changes yet to arrive. Now that you've seen your summertime efforts come to fruition, it's time to look ahead to the winter. This is not to say that your holiday shopping should be over and done with by next week, but it won't hurt to start reflecting on what you want out of the remainder of 2017. Once you have your end-of-year wish list in mind, get moving. Start thinking about how you can start to make your dreams a reality, even if they're on the bigger and wilder side. With the expansive full moon fueling your ambition, even the smallest steps will leave a major impact. Related Video:

Other

Other

Updated June 19, 2018. President Trump and his aides at the White House have defended separating children from parents in detention near the southwest border, despite a growing public outcry over the practice, fueled by images and accounts of crying children held in cage-like facilities. The number of families making the journey over land to the United States has soared in recent months, infuriating the president, who had cited a decline in 2017 as evidence that his stance on immigration was succeeding. A new “zero tolerance” policy, calling for criminal prosecution of everyone who enters the country illegally, became official in May, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited Arizona and California. “If you cross the southwest border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you — it’s that simple,” Mr. Sessions said. “If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you. If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally.” With few exceptions, the United States has historically treated immigration violations as civil, rather than criminal, offenses, and parents have not typically been separated from their children when they entered the legal system. “This is an additional punitive measure the administration is imposing on parents in an effort to frighten Central Americans, to discourage them from seeking asylum,” said Reuben Cahn, executive director of the Federal Defenders of San Diego, who is representing several of the caravan migrants. Religious leaders and prominent figures from both political parties have spoken out against the family separation practice. Here’s a look at what is happening to migrant families on the border, and what’s behind it. The administration did not announce a blanket policy to separate families, but its prosecution policy is having that effect. Mr. Sessions said his department would criminally prosecute everyone who is found to have illegally entered the United States. Children are not allowed to remain with parents who are in custody in the criminal court system, so if a mother or father is apprehended with a child, the administration says, the minor must be taken from the parent. The administration says its hands are tied by a 1997 court settlement and later court rulings governing the settings in which detained children can be held. But separating parents from children is only one of several options the administration has for meeting the requirements, even while carrying out its prosecution policy. The White House has also said that longstanding laws require the separations, but experts say there are no such laws. Administration officials say the aim is to protect the border and uphold the law through new measures to deter illegal immigration. Other motivations: Mr. Sessions has said the asylum system is overwhelmed with people making frivolous claims, and Mr. Trump, according to administration officials, had been demanding that families be broken up to stanch the flow of Central Americans to the border. The majority of apprehended migrants come from Honduras or El Salvador, two countries wracked by violence. Children there are often targeted for recruitment by gangs, prompting their families to seek safe haven in the United States. The “zero tolerance” policy is supposed to apply only to people who enter the country illegally. Presenting yourself at a port of entry and requesting asylum is not illegal. But these legal asylum seekers are generally taken into detention while their cases are processed, which can take months, and there are reports that those families are now being separated in the same way that illegal-entrant families are. Complicating the issue, many families that enter illegally request asylum once they are caught. Immigration lawyers and advocates who work at the border say that family separations began in earnest after Mr. Trump took office pledging to crack down on illegal immigration, though a very small number had occurred during previous administrations. The practice has gained momentum in the last two months, particularly in Texas, where many families from Central America seek to cross, the lawyers and advocates say. Politicians of both parties and other prominent people have spoken out against the practice, and the American Civil Liberties Union is suing to stop it. The organization argues that it is a violation of due process to separate parents and children simply as a means to deter illegal immigration. Only when parents are abusive or unfit to care for their children can the children legally be taken away from them, the group argues in its suit, which was filed before the administration announced the new practice. There are logistical obstacles to doing that. The nation has two centers where families can remain together while awaiting disposition of their cases, but their combined capacity is just 2,700 people; the detention system is swamped with thousands more cases than that. Another option is to release parents and their children from detention with orders to return to court for their immigration hearings. That has often been the practice in the past, but President Trump has criticized “catch and release” and has said he would end its use. More than 2,000 migrant children have been separated from their parents, according to government officials. Field supervisors with the Border Patrol have the discretion to allow children younger than 5 to stay with their parents. The government says that when it detains a parent, it cannot release a child except to a legal guardian like a relative, if one is available and can prove ties to the child. Typically, though, children are sent to a federally licensed facility operated by the Health and Human Services Department, or are placed with a temporary foster family, where they remain while the parent is in the criminal justice system. Immigration lawyers say the separations can last for four months or longer, while the parents’ and children’s cases proceed separately. Normally, a child is reunited with a parent once the parent has been released from detention, but there have been cases of parents being deported without their children. Steven Wagner, a senior official at the Health and Human Services Department, said on Tuesday that he did not know how many separated children had been reunited with their parents. “This policy is relatively new, and we are still working through the experience of reuniting kids with their parents after adjudication,” Mr. Wagner told reporters on a conference call. Studies have shown that children who are separated from their parents can develop anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, and may exhibit behavioral problems and do poorly in school afterward. In an affidavit attached to the A.C.L.U. lawsuit, the heads of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Child Welfare League of America, among others, strongly urged the homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, not to break up families. “Separation from family leaves children more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, no matter what the care setting,” the affidavit says. “In addition, traumatic separation from parents creates toxic stress in children and adolescents that can profoundly impact their development.” Government officials say that there is a perception that migrants with children are more likely to be released into the United States than others who try to enter the country illegally. But it is unclear how often people try to pass off unrelated children as their own for this purpose. Some abuses of migrant children have been documented. Beginning in 2013, minors were fraudulently plucked from shelters by men who posed as friends or family, promised to provide them shelter and transportation to their immigration hearings, and then made them work long hours on egg farms in Ohio. Six people were sentenced to federal prison for their participation in the scheme.

Politics

Immigration

The end of your work life could be the start of an entirely new life—lived abroad. For many Americans, retiring to another country is a life change that can fit in a post-paycheck budget. "You need to have an open mind and an appetite for adventure", author Kathleen Peddicord told CNBC's "On the Money" in a recent interview. Peddicord, who is founder and publisher of Live and Invest Overseas, said 30 years ago, retiring abroad was considered "a fringe idea, and today it's an increasingly common, mainstream idea." In fact, Peddicord cited three retirement destinations that stand out: Portugal, Belize and Mexico. "Portugal is a wonderful county and has so much to offer the retiree," she said. "It has great weather, beautiful beaches, and great medieval old towns." Peddicord specifically likes the scenic beachfront region of Algarve. "It's the best of the Old World and very affordable and very welcoming of foreign retirees right now." The other two locations are closer to home: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and the Central American country of Belize. "Both have been the most popular destinations for this idea for a long time because they are so nearby so accessible," the author said. She pointed out that "both Belize and Puerto Vallarta offer affordability for cost of living and real estate, if you want to buy a home of your own." She added that both countries have "established expat communities of other retirees who are already living there, already 'living the dream.'" Peddicord said they can answer your questions and help you get established. Once you pick a destination, a big question is whether to rent or buy a home. Live and Invest Overseas estimates the rent for an apartment for two, in any of the three locations, would be between $500 and $600 a month. "I really strongly recommend [you] rent for 6 to 12 months at first to make sure that the place you've chosen place is the place you want to be and the idea works for you in general," Peddicord told CNBC. What about health care? "The truth is the standard and quality of health care in many places," she said. "In these three countries in particular, can be as good as or better than in the United States and its definitely going to be more affordable." But she cautioned that "one consideration is health insurance, what kind of health insurance to choose." Local health insurance is an option, "but they'll only cover you in that country," the author said. She explained that you need international health insurance if you plan to split your time, or you intend to travel to other countries. There is one key point that should be made clear to all would-be retirees, however. "The thing to understand is your U.S. health insurance won't travel with you. It won't cover you overseas," Peddicord added. On the Money airs on CNBC Saturday at 5:30 am ET, or check listings for air times in local markets.

Other

Other

(Reuters) - Innergex Renewable Energy said it will buy rival Alterra Power Corp in a deal valued at C$1.1 billion ($857.83 million)including debt as the power producer looks to diversify its energy portfolio. Alterra shareholders will receive C$8.25 per Alterra share, payable in C$2.06 cash and 0.4172 of a common share of Innergex​, the companies said in a joint release on Monday. The deal represents a premium of 62.7 percent to Alterra’s last close of C$5.07 and will add to Innergex’s earnings after the completion of Alterra’s projects under construction, the companies said. BMO Capital Markets was the financial adviser for Innergex and McCarthy Tétrault LLP its legal counsel. National Bank Financial and Marathon Capital were financial advisers for Alterra and Borden Ladner Gervais LLP was its legal counsel. Shares of Alterra were down 0.2 percent at C$5.06 and Innergex down 0.7 percent at C$14.73 in after-market trading. ($1 = 1.28 Canadian dollars) Reporting by Anirban Paul in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur

Government

Law

March 15 (Reuters) - SkyPeople Fruit Juice Inc * SkyPeople enters into agreement with agricultural products e-commerce platform * SkyPeople Fruit Juice -on march 13, Hedetang Foods (China) signed a one-year business agreement with Jiangsu Nongmuren Agricultural Products e-commerce platform Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

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(CNN)When a man had a heart attack while laying sod in his front yard, first responders not only saved him, but they also finished the job for him. Gene Work of Pasco County, Florida, was racing to get the sod down Saturday to avoid getting a fine from his homeowner's association, his wife, Melissa Work, wrote on Facebook. "While he was having his heart attack, literally in and out of consciousness, he kept begging me to figure out the sod and have it put down because he didn't want it to go to waste and die," she wrote. "It's ALL he kept asking about literally during a massive heart attack." Firefighters arrived and took the man and his wife to the hospital. Melissa Work's brother-in-law stayed behind to work on the last four palettes of sod. As he finished removing the old grass and started installing a few rows of sod, he heard the roar of engines. A firetruck and an ambulance pulled up and seven firefighters jumped out, ready to help. They said they came back to help because they "knew Gene was in serious trouble" and wanted to make sure the sod didn't die, Work wrote in her post. Pasco County Fire Rescue confirmed the good deed in a Facebook post of its own and wished Work a "speedy recovery." "We believe in helping the community whenever we are needed, and recently the crew from Station 10 (A-Shift) did exactly that," the post read. His wife was overwhelmed by the kindness of the crew -- they went beyond the call of duty. "They saved his life, dropped him off and then cared enough to save our GRASS!!" Work wrote. "They didn't know all we have been through as a little family. They simply saw someone in need, something in need and did this for us. This wasn't in their job description."

Entertainment

Television

The ugly bigotry that surrounds Islam is bleeding over to a group of Americans who have nothing to do with Islam: the 250,000 or so people in the US who identify as Sikh. The problem? Americans seem to have no idea who Sikhs are. In a Daily Show segment aired Monday, people on the street were more likely to point to pictures of binoculars, a bird, and children playing hide-and-seek than a picture of a man wearing a turban as an example of "a Sikh." Instead, when people see a Sikh man wearing a turban, they assume he's Muslim. And worse, because of Islamophobia, they often assume he's a terrorist. Actor Waris Ahluwalia is familiar with this type of prejudice. He told The Daily Show's Hasan Minhaj that he was kept from boarding a plane because he refused to take off his turban, a symbol of his faith. This wasn't the first time Ahluwalia had issues at the airport, either: "Almost every time I fly back to the US, I get a secondary screening." He can't just take off the turban, either. Ahluwalia explained, "The turban is part of my religion. It's part of my faith. It represents who I am, what I believe in, the values that I hold dear and true. And those values are Sikh. Those values are American." Ahluwalia isn't alone. In a panel with other Sikh Americans, Minhaj heard more stories of discrimination: "I've been called ISIS a lot recently." "Americans who see Sikhs automatically think we are terrorists." "The turban is what makes us the target." In response, Minhaj jokingly suggested that the best way to combat prejudice may be a publicity campaign that shows Sikhs are "just like us." But fundamentally, the issue is that people hold bigoted views toward an entire religion — in a way that's so broad that it's even bleeding over to other faiths. Still, Sikhs on The Daily Show's panel told Minhaj that they're unwilling to say they're not Muslim and, as one Sikh man described it, "throw another community under the bus." He said, "Even if it means things are harder for us, we believe it's the right thing to do." Another man added, "We need to be better than that as Americans. And that's what our Sikh values teach as well."

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Financial leaders from the Group of 20 nations said on Friday they were heartened by a recent recovery in financial markets, but warned that global growth was “modest and uneven” and threatened by weakness in commodities-based economies. In a communique issued after their meeting in Washington, G20 finance ministers and central bank governors repeated their pledge to refrain from competitive currency devaluations, but offered no new initiatives to keep growth from stalling. The G20 officials took a slightly more positive view on financial markets, which they said had mostly recovered from sharp selloffs earlier this year and were in better shape since they last met in Shanghai in February. “However, growth remains modest and uneven, and downside risks and uncertainties to the global outlook persist against the backdrop of continued financial volatility, challenges faced by commodity exporters and low inflation,” they said. The communique also pointed to Britain’s possible exit from the European Union, geopolitical conflicts, terrorism and refugee flows as complications for the global economic landscape. The statement repeated G20 pledges to “use fiscal policy flexibly” to strengthen growth, job creation and confidence. It kept language that member countries “will continue to explore policy options,” adding that they would be “tailored to country circumstances.” “There’s not a one-size-fits-all answer” to boost growth, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told a news conference, adding that each country needed to decide for itself how best to apply structural reforms, monetary policy and fiscal spending. But he emphasized that it was important for Japan and China to pursue structural reforms - China to reduce excess industrial capacity and Japan to reform agriculture and other key sectors. Both of these would require some social spending to support displaced workers, Lew added. The G20 gathering, the highlight of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington, came amid growing pressure on richer nations to boost infrastructure spending, deregulate industries and spur employment. Earlier this week the IMF cut its 2016 growth forecast for the world economy, the fourth such move in less than a year. The meetings this week also coincided with weakness in a number of key commodity-based economies, particularly Brazil, which is enduring its worst recession in decades. After release of the so-called “Panama Papers” earlier this month stirred up controversy over global elites’ widespread use of off-shore tax havens to shield their wealth, the G20 officials strengthened their pledge to implement measures to combat exploitation of tax law mismatches and improve tax information sharing. They said “defensive measures will be considered by G20 members against non-cooperative jurisdictions” if progress toward these goals is not made. Despite the repeat of currency pledges, differences over exchange rates, particularly a weaker dollar, and negative interest rates at some central banks were readily apparent at the Washington meetings. Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said the G20 agreements on currencies did not preclude appropriate action in the currency market to prevent excessive and disorderly exchange rate movements. The yen earlier this week hit a 17-month high against the dollar. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble this week has warned of the fallout from the European Central Bank’s negative rate policies, saying it would hurt bank profitability and German savers. And ECB sources told Reuters that European Central Bank is unhappy with the U.S. dollar’s recent fall but accepts it as a natural consequence of the Federal Reserve’s cautious economic outlook and sees no reason to act to weaken the euro. “With the Fed’s lowered rate path comes a weaker dollar and we need to avoid even the impression that we’re targeting the exchange rate,” one of the three sources said. Reporting by David Lawder; Additional reporting by Jason Lange, Balazs Koranyi, Jan Strupczewski, Lindsay Dunsmuir, Leika Kihara, Gernot Heller and Koh Gui Qing; Editing by Paul Simao and Andrea Ricci

Economics

Finance

Jan 16(Reuters) - Beijing HualuBaina Film&Tv Co Ltd * Says HUALU ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY, a wholly owned unit of China Hualu Group Co., LTD., plans to sell all 142.6 million shares (17.6 percent stake) of the co Source text in Chinese: goo.gl/xPdqs5 Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)

Technology

Manufacturing

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on Thursday said Russia is forcing the United States to focus more intently on its nuclear security, and he added that the U.S. should work to modernize its nuclear deterrent. "I mentioned earlier Russia and stimulating some additional thinking on energy security. They've also stimulated some additional thinking on nuclear security issues unfortunately," Moniz said during a speech at Columbia University on Thursday evening hosted by the Center on Global Energy Policy. The U.S. Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration is tasked with guarding the safety and integrity of the nation's nuclear arsenal. Moniz said he believes President Barack Obama has the right vision of working toward a nuclear weapon-free world, but he said the next administration will face difficult choices because "there is no reason today to think that that is not going to be a multi-decade activity." "So a lot of money is going to have to be spent on modernizing the nuclear deterrent and rethinking exactly how it's used," he said, without elaborating on what form those changes should take. Moniz added that Russia's annexation of Crimea and ongoing incursions into Ukraine since 2014 made the United States and Europe reconsider civilian energy policy, because the European Union is heavily reliant on imports of Russian natural gas. Moniz did not refer to specific actions Moscow has taken to stoke U.S. thinking on nuclear security, but the Kremlin has taken a number of steps recently that have concerned the White House. Earlier this month, Russia suspended a pact with the United States to reduce the amount of surplus weapons-grade plutonium still held by both countries. The same week, Russia positioned missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear payloads into an area bordering Poland and Lithuania, both NATO members. The Russian Defense Ministry said the activity was part of routine drills. An ultra-nationalist ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin this week said America risked being dragged into nuclear war if Hillary Clinton becomes president, though the lawmaker is widely considered something of a political clown, and members of the U.S. intelligence community has said that Russia wants to influence the presidential election in favor of Republican candidate Donald Trump. The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on a number of Russian individuals and taken measures to handicap the country's defense, banking, and energy sectors, alleging Moscow violated Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Moniz also addressed criticisms of the Iran nuclear agreement he helped hammer out last year. The deal, agreed to by Iran and six other nations, lifted some sanctions on the long-time U.S. adversary. In exchange, Iran accepted limits on its atomic energy program and allowed inspections of its nuclear facilities to resume. Critics claim the deal did not address a host of issues, such as Iran's support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. Moniz said the negotiations were meant only to address the immediate threat of Iran's nuclear program and noted U.S. sanctions on Iran remain in place over its human rights record and support for U.S.-designated terrorist groups. "Just as when Reagan negotiated arms control in the 80s, it wasn't to solve all the problems we had with the Soviet Union," like the former union's role in fueling proxy wars and restrictions on Jewish emigration, Moniz said.

Politics

International Relations

Bojangles' will offer a free, printable calendar in 2018 with coupons for customers who sign up. (Bojangles') Moo-ve over Chick-fil-A. Following news that Chick-fil-A will be putting its beloved Cow Calendars out to pasture, fried chicken joint Bojangles&apos announced plans to offer their own coupon-packed calendars to customers next year. Chick-fil-A recently announced the “retirement” of its beloved Cow Calendars , leaving many loyal customers heartbroken. The calendars were packed with coupons for free meals and featured Chick-fil-A’s quirky cow mascots getting into some zany antics every month. CHICK-FIL-A WILL BEGIN SELLING MEAL KITS NEXT MONTH But Bojangles’, a southern chicken and biscuits fast food chain, is coming to the rescue, offering its own free printable calendars. “Every month beautiful pictures of barnyard animals on a print-out calendar and a Bojangles’ coupon will be sent directly to your inbox,” the online sign-up form promises. It&aposs unclear if Bojangles&apos had planned to roll out the calendars prior to Chick-fil-A&aposs announcement, or if the chain is simply milking the news — and the fallout over Chick-fil-A butchering its beloved calendars — for all that it&aposs worth. Customers who wish to sign up for Bojangles' calendars will need to provide a zip code and email address, where a new calendar page — with a coupon — can be sent each month. (Bojangles') BURGER KING TREATS TERMINALLY ILL DOG TO FREE CHEESEBURGERS A sneak peak of January’s calendar shows a band of cattle congregating by a fence, but Bojangles’ says the calendars will be “more than just bovines!” “Every month you’ll receive a beautiful picture of a barnyard animal. And not just one kind,” reads a message on Bojangles’ website. Customers who wish to sign up for Bojangles&apos calendars will need to provide a zip code and email address, where a new page can be sent each month. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS Bojangles&apos is available on the East Coast, with the majority of its restaurants located in the Carolinas.

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It appears Kendall Jenner and ex Blake Griffin have officially moved on from each other. Griffin, 29, had some fun in the sun with Frankie’s Bikinis owner Francesca Aiello over the weekend. The NBA player and Aiello enjoyed time together in Malibu, where the smiling pair was photographed embracing while walking together. Griffin showed off his rock-hard abs while sporting pale blue swimshorts, and the bathing suit mogul wore a yellow T-shirt and camouflage print pants. Later, Griffin and the blonde beauty were snapped — both shirtless — sharing a smooch in his car in photos obtained by TMZ. “After creating two collections Francesca made her Miami Swim Week debut in 2014, making her the youngest designer ever to do so. Francesca’s designs have been worn by supermodels and celebrities including Gigi Hadid, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Kylie Jenner,” according to the Frankie’s Bikinis website. Earlier this month, Griffin was photographed leaving Nobu with a mystery blonde now identified as Aiello. The two left the Malibu restaurant together after grabbing dinner. The outing came just days after Jenner and Ben Simmons stepped out together in Los Angeles. (Jenner, 22, and Griffin dated for several months, though they never discussed their relationship publicly.) The supermodel and Philadelphia 76ers player, 21, were spotted hitting up the Nice Guy in West Hollywood. Though they arrived separately and exited through different doors, they got in the same SUV at the end of the night. The duo was also joined by Kaia Gerber and Jordyn Woods, who was reportedly hanging with another NBA player, Devin Booker.

Fashion

Clothing

(Recasts throughout, updates prices, adds market strategist's quote) April 9 (Reuters) - Most Latin American stock markets fell along with their global peers on Tuesday, with risk appetite in Brazil hit by a lack of progress on pension reform, while wider sentiment was affected by a U.S. threat for tariffs on European Union goods. The International Monetary Fund cut its outlook on the global economy and also for Brazil and Mexico, tarnishing sentiment. Rafael Bevilacqua, chief strategist at independent investment consultancy Levante, said the lack of positive news on the pension reform proposal caused Brazilian stocks to fall, reflecting investors' caution around the proposal's progress. MSCI's index of Latin American stocks fell half a percent, as losses among stocks in index heavyweights Brazil and Mexico exacted a hefty toll. Brazil's real dipped 0.1 percent while stocks slid 1.1 percent, with losses incurred in each sector apart from consumer staples. Common shares and preferred shares of state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) dropped 0.9 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively, tracking lower oil prices. The preferred shares snapped a three session winning run during which time they tacked on about 6.2 percent, buoyed in part by the $8.6 billion divestment of a 90 percent stake in pipeline unit TAG to an Engie-led consortium. Shares of Vale SA fell 2 percent. The miner's own and contract workers in Brumadinho are to join a lawsuit for greater total labor claims against the company, after a dam burst in January led to the deaths of 300 people. Ambev rose 2 percent and was one of the benchmark's few gainers on the day. Credit Suisse said it sees the firm recording a 7 percent rise in beer volumes in Brazil in the first quarter, to go with 12 percent revenue growth. Mexican stocks fell 0.6 percent, distancing themselves from five-month highs on Monday, while the peso currency edged up. Annual inflation in Mexico ticked up slightly in March, data showed, spurred by a jump in gasoline prices that has raised red flags with the government. Argentina's stocks benchmark tumbled 4 percent to reverse the 4.1 percent gain made over the past three sessions. Chilean stocks ticked 0.1 percent higher, while the currency dipped as local demand for foreign exchange overcame support provided by higher prices of copper, the country's top export. . "In Chile, pension reform difficulties have been a headwind to the more positive fundamental story," Ilya Gofshetyn, an analyst with Standard Chartered Bank, told the Reuters Global Market Forum. "Both Chile and Colombia are of course beholden to their respective commodity exports to some degree, Chile more so than Colombia." Colombia's peso firmed 0.4 percent, while stocks slipped 0.1 percent. Oil firm Ecopetrol SA pulled 1.3 percent lower by weak oil prices. Japan's Softbank Group announced the initial executive investment team for the $5 billion technology growth fund for Latin America. Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 2105 GMT Stock indexes daily %Latest changeMSCI Emerging Markets 1093.44 0.45MSCI LatAm 2834.12 -0.52Brazil Bovespa 96291.79 -1.11Mexico IPC 45151.63 -0.63Chile IPSA 5281.78 0.13Argentina MerVal 31743.38 -4.04Colombia IGBC 13244.14 -0.07Currencies daily % change Latest Brazil real 3.8501 0.09Mexico peso 18.9342 -0.02Chile peso 663.8 -0.02Colombia peso 3101.45 0.00Peru sol 3.294 -0.18Argentina peso (interbank) 43.3500 0.92 (Reporting by Aaron Saldanha in Bengaluru, Additional reporting editing by Grant McCool)

Politics

Government

Rodney Reed was granted an indefinite stay of execution over the weekend, days before he was scheduled to die.Reed was sentenced to death in 1998 for the 1996 murder of a 19-year-old woman named Stacey Stites.Reed's mother, Sandra Reed, spoke to CBS affiliate KEYE-TV about her son, saying: "the truth will set him free."The Innocence Project, Reed's legal team, filed an appeal on November 11. They say new evidence will implicate Stites' fiance in her death. The mother of Texas death-row inmate Rodney Reed, who had his execution blocked over the weekend, voiced support for her son, saying: "the truth will and shall set him free."Rodney Reed was granted a stay of execution on Friday. He has spent 20 years in prison for the 1996 murder of a 19-year-old woman named Stacey Stites.Reed's mother, Sandra Reed, told  CBS affiliate KEYE-TV on Saturday that she was "so happy" his execution had been blocked."We had witnesses that were intimidated, but now it's a new day. Twenty years or more have passed and things are changing, and I think this case will bring about a change," Sandra said. "The truth will and shall set him free."The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted an indefinite stay of execution for Reed of Friday, hours after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended delaying the execution. His criminal conviction has not been overturned.The Innocence Project, Reed's legal team, filed an appeal on November 11 claiming the state had relied on false witness testimony. It also argues that new witness testimony could implicate Stite's then-fiance, ex-police officer Jimmy Fennell.In 2008, Fennell pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping and improper sexual conduct with a person in custody. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. According to an affidavit from Arthur Snow, a fellow inmate and member of the Aryan Brotherhood, Fennell confessed to the killing while they served together. "Jimmy said his fiancé had been sleeping around with a black man behind his back. By the way Jimmy spoke about this experience, I could tell that it deeply angered him," Snow said in the affidavit."Toward the end of the conversation Jimmy said confidently, 'I had to kill my N------loving fiancée.'"Reed's brother, Rodrick Reed, and sister-in-law Wana Akpin, held a "Free Rodney Reed" rally on Sunday, and celebrities including Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian West, Meek Mill, and Oprah have voiced support for Reed.Kardashian West said on Instagram that she was with Reed when he learned his execution would be delayed."Words cannot describe the relief and hope that swept over the room in that moment," she said.She later told the "Today" show that it was an "extremely emotional" day."When someone has been through so much trauma and so much disappointment in their life that, especially when they feel like they haven't been heard, you can imagine still a sense of disbelief," she said, adding that Reed has a "history of just being let down for so many years."Read more:A Texas court blocked Rodney Reed's execution after Kim Kardashian West and Oprah voiced support for the death row inmateThe Texas parole board is recommending a delay for Rodney Reed's execution after Kim Kardashian West and Beyoncé pushed for a reprievePowerful portraits of women serving life sentences in prison show that they are more than their crimes Kim Kardashian West is pushing for Brendan Dassey to be granted clemency in the 'Making a Murderer' case Read the original article on INSIDER. Copyright 2019. Follow INSIDER on Facebook. Follow INSIDER on Twitter.

Crime

Murder

Donald Trump is quickly becoming the source of some of the greatest memes the Internet has ever seen. In February alone, there have been imaginative executive orders and creative takes on "fine-tuned machines." Now, let us present you with the latest, courtesy of Reddit: Tiny Trump.Tiny Trump is a doll-sized version of the Trump you know, Photoshopped in various scenarios. Where real-life Trump once stood, Tiny Trump is now there in his stead. For example, Tiny Trump plays a beloved Trump pastime, golf. He takes meetings with fellow world leaders, including Justin Trudeau. He goes for walks with his daughter, Ivanka Trump. Some redditors are critical of others' photoshopped creations, noting of the last one that "you can see some floating Trump hair at his original position" and that he is "not tiny enough!" For those who know their memes well, you'll recognize that Tiny Trump is a much-exaggerated version of the tiny hands memes that conquered the Internet during the election. According to Know Your Meme, the now widespread references to Trump's supposedly small hands originated in a 1988 article in Spy Magazine. In the piece, current Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter, called Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian."Will Trump take to Twitter to condemn Reddit in the same way he lashed out at Nordstrom for its slight of Ivanka? Maybe. But that would probably only lead to another meme.

Politics

International Relations

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine Maria Rose Belding spent her middle and high school years being shoved into lockers, physically threatened and told she should kill herself to make the world a better place. But Belding had other plans about how she could improve the world. Almost as soon as she arrived in Washington, D.C., to begin pre-med studies at American University, she met and partnered with a tech-savvy George Washington University Law School student named Grant Nelson. Nelson took Belding’s fledgling plans for a network linking food banks – something she tirelessly developed throughout high school – and made them a reality. “When I started volunteering at food banks, I was usually the youngest person by about 50 years,” Belding, 20, tells PEOPLE of her work in her native Pella, Iowa. “It was an icy, cold walk to the dumpster and I didn’t want an older volunteer to slip and break a hip or leg or kill themselves, so I threw out the expired food.” The turning point for her was the donation of 10,000 boxes of macaroni and cheese with a fast-approaching expiration date. Despite the Herculean efforts of the pantry’s director, Melissa Zula, no other food bank could be found to take the food. “I watched her work so hard, more than anyone would have ever expected of her, and she just couldn’t find anyone to take the food,” Belding says. “It was awful because I had to throw out 400 boxes of macaroni and cheese that expired…I just thought it shouldn’t be this difficult to get food to hungry people.” But it is, say Zula, who for seven years has managed the Pella food bank. “That is why her idea is so great,” Zula adds. “When I took over seven years ago, we were still working on pen and paper. Maria is young and creative and looked for ways to streamline the process. It was so fun to see her eyes light up when we talked about it. What she’s done is not only help us serve clients and guests but be more productive so we reach more people in need.” As she researched the idea, Belding estimated that at least a third of food banks, most run by volunteers, have no working telephone numbers, email addresses or websites, making it impossible to efficiently report food surpluses. “I found it difficult to believe that such a network didn’t already exist,” Nelson says of his original hesitation to work on the project. “Even if it didn’t, there are phones. Email. Facebook.” The more he talked to Belding and explored the issue, the more convinced he was that such a network was needed. After a year of research, planning and coding, all between his rigorous law school studies, Nelson was hooked. And their non-profit MEANS (Matching Excess and Need for Stability), run by a lean student staff of just over a dozen, launched in February 2013. It is credited with saving in excess of two tons of food. The result is a network connecting food banks in 36 states and growing. Before January’s paralyzing snowstorm in Washington, D.C., Belding, Nelson and their volunteer staff stocked the MEANS offices located at American University with pillows, blankets and hot drinks, to ensure they could work through the storm, thus keeping the network up and running. “I got involved by accident. I didn’t know what I was getting into!” laughs Zoey Salsbury, an 18-year old sophomore at American University whose professional problem-solving savvy puts her on par with public relations officers at major agencies. “I was a Girl Scout all my life and volunteered at food banks, so I saw the need. And once I started talking to Maria, I knew I had to get involved. This is really intense, but we’re making a difference.” The Rev. Tierney Screen, vice president of River Jordan Project, Inc. in Accokeek, Maryland, saw that work in action last fall when she met Belding at Convoy of Hope Community Day in Washington. “We had over 3,600 pre-packed lunch bags containing cookies, candy, chips, napkins, mustard and ketchup packets, left over after the event. Maria Rose came to the event and assisted me to post the lunch bags on the MEANS Database at around 5 p.m.” Just a few hours later, the food was claimed for those in need. “This was truly eliminating food waste because the lunch bags and hot dog rolls would have had to be thrown in the trash as we did not have storage space for them,” Rev. Screen tells PEOPLE. “When you do the math, 3,600 meals were made available to 3,600 Homeless individuals. MEANS Database is real and filling the gap to eliminate food waste and to keep waste out of the landfills.” And the world has taken notice with honors and accolades sent to Belding and her colleagues. Just two years after her high school graduation, Belding, dressed in an elegant black evening gown, flashed a mega watt smile as she shared a red carpet in New York with celebrities, including Karlie Kloss, Eva Longoria, Andie MacDowell and Julianne Moore as one of 10 “Women of Worth” celebrated by L’Oreal Paris. Belding hopes such honors will help spread the word about MEANS and the need to stop food waste. “This is all building to a point where the U.S. isn’t wasting needed food,” she says. “We want to get this food to people who need it. We’ve started to make progress, but we have a long way to go.”

Food

Cooking

She just sold her home there in March, but Kesha‘s heading back to Nashville – the show, that is. The singer – who’s currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Sony and producer Dr. Luke – will guest star as herself on ABC’s hit show, and PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at the star on set. In the May 11 episode, Juliette (played by Hayden Panettiere) reunites with her Shenandoah Girl costar Noah West (played by Derek Hough) on the Oscar campaign trail and meets Kesha. [IMAGE “1” “” “std” ] The singer – who has had small roles recently in Jane the Virgin and Jem and the Holograms – told Entertainment Weekly last year she was having fun exploring “different art mediums.” “Right now my [music] career is kind of on hold,” she said. “I’m finding other ways to express myself and have outlets and connect with my fans.” Kesha’s episode of Nashville airs May 11 at 10 p.m. on ABC.

Entertainment

Television

While President-elect Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpPossible GOP challenger says Trump doesn't doesn't deserve reelection, but would vote for him over Democrat O'Rourke: Trump driving global, U.S. economy into recession Manchin: Trump has 'golden opportunity' on gun reforms MORE delivered a surprise victory in November, the true underdog of the 2016 election was his fearless campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, who shattered the glass ceiling of political operatives, yet paused while ahead to ensure her priorities in life. Since August, Conway has been Trump’s most effective surrogate, standing by him and handling an often-hostile press throughout all his controversies and scandals. She can take on hard questions and give back strong and composed answers. This contributed to Trump’s victory — and resulted in Conway’s place as the first woman to run a successful presidential campaign. Conway masterfully defends Trump to the media while attempting to smooth his rough edges. For instance, after Meryl Streep criticized Trump at the Golden Globes, Conway appeared on CNN with Chris Cuomo, answering tough questions about the incident in which Trump allegedly mocked a disabled reporter.   Conway, as always, managed to stay loyal, on message and calm under pressure. Her greatest strength has been to give him a sense of reason, even when she comes under fire for her own comments, such as, “You want to go with what’s come out of his mouth rather than what’s in his heart.” Conway, neé Fitzpatrick, has worked as a professional campaign strategist for over two decades, tracking women’s issues as they relate to economic and political choices. She made a name for herself working for prominent Republican figures like Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Before joining the Trump campaign, she headed up a political action committee supporting Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump moves forward with F-16 sale to Taiwan opposed by China The Hill's Campaign Report: Battle for Senate begins to take shape O'Rourke says he will not 'in any scenario' run for Senate MORE. Conway’s reputation as a numbers wizard preceded her long before the 2016 election. "Why can't you give him the benefit of the doubt?" Kellyanne Conway says Trump wasn't mocking reporter's disability. https://t.co/3LAWwTIME4 When Conway took on the role of Trump’s campaign manager, she was tasked with rescuing a campaign that, at best, was 6 points behind in the polls. She was Trump’s third campaign manager, but she was perfectly equipped for the job due to her intimate knowledge of polling data and statistics.   The journey to November was difficult, particularly when Trump’s past comments about women came to light. Conway was forced to defend her role, as a woman, working for a man who had made obscene comments about women. However, the incident did not faze her: she helped shift the narrative to Bill and Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonLewandowski on potential NH Senate run: If I run, 'I'm going to win' Fighter pilot vs. astronaut match-up in Arizona could determine control of Senate Progressive Democrats' turnout plans simply don't add up MORE’s past actions and proved that women had no reason to be afraid of an allegedly misogynistic candidate. Her strategy proved successful on Nov. 8, when Trump was supported by 42 percent of women in general, and 53 percent of white women. Conway, as she had done for years before, fought to maintain a balance between her family and her job, earning a "Saturday Night Live" parody skit in the process. Finding such a balance has been a key focus of her life — one every woman should look up to and emulate. The idea of women “having it all” has been debated in public for years. The goal of second-wave feminism, shattering glass ceilings and offering true gender equality, has largely succeeded already, but with it has introduced a plethora of new struggles related to marriage and family.  "Today's woman is penciling in marriage and motherhood on her lifetime To Do list, and a trip to the altar, although still desired, is no longer urgent," Conway wrote in her 2005 book, “What Women Really Want.” A God-given desire to be fruitful and multiply cannot go away easily, but a society that encourages, even pressures, women to seek out their own individualistic paths in life can too easily send priorities astray. Conway did not prove that women can “have it all” through her role in the Trump campaign. In a Politico panel shortly after the election, Conway recounted that she told her children, “Mommy is on her semester abroad.” Despite being offered the role of White House press secretary, she turned the position down, opting instead for the less demanding role of counselor to the president. Conway could have had it all professionally, but she would have given up much more. Rather than make that sacrifice, she took a step back while she was ahead. When Conway was named counselor to the president, some people such as Juan Williams, a columnist for The Hill, questioned how she could take on the role with four kids, to which Conway unapologetically responded, “I would say that I don’t play golf, and I don’t have a mistress, so I have a lot of time that a lot of these other men don’t.” On Jan. 20, Conway celebrates two important milestones: the inauguration of her boss as the 45th president and her own 50th birthday. Her accomplishments since the beginning of her career 1990s are tremendous. Any woman — on either side of the political spectrum — should be able to look up to her as a professional role model. More importantly, however, her commitment to her true priorities in life — the people she cares about the most — is what is most admirable about this woman. As a young millennial who will soon go through the same struggle to find balance, I am delighted to see someone as successful and passionate as Conway. Sadly, she has not received the same amount of recognition she would have if she were on the left. Nevertheless, she remains a role model for young female conservatives to emulate. Women may not be able to “have it all,” but Kellyanne Conway proves that women can have enough, and then some, to be satisfied in life. Ladies, be more like Kellyanne Conway.   Kassy Dillon is the founder of LoneConservative.com. She is a junior at Mount Holyoke College studying International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies. She is the MHC College Republican President, the Massachusetts YAL state chair, and she can be found on Twitter at @KassyDillon. The views of Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill. View the discussion thread. Contributor's Signup The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

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Welcome to Mothership: Parenting stories you actually want to read, whether you're thinking about or passing on kids, from egg-freezing to taking home baby and beyond. Because motherhood is a big if — not when — and it's time we talked about it that way. April is Autism Awareness Month. That's why one mom wants the world to know kids on the autism spectrum — 1 in 68 children have autism — shouldn't feel isolated and ostracized. After an incident with her 6-year-old son at a playground designed for special-needs children, Minnesota mom Kate Swensen posted an emotional video to Facebook explaining why autism awareness is so important. According to Babble, Disney's parenting blog, Swensen's son, Cooper, has severe nonverbal autism. At the playground, he pushed a girl down a slide and her father "lost it." Swensen adds that because autism is an "invisible disability," many people don't fully understand it and blame a child's erratic and often inexplicable behavior on bad parenting. In Cooper's case, he ran off laughing after the girl's father confronted him. "The dad lost it on Cooper. He yelled at him and me," Swensen said. She also explained that after Cooper pushed the girl down the slide, she made sure that the child wasn't hurt and apologized to the girl's father. Even after that, Swensen says that he verbally humiliated her and Cooper. The goal of the video, Swensen says, isn't to shame the family, but to let other parents and families know that there needs to be a conversation around autism spectrum disorder and that kids on the spectrum shouldn't expect special treatment, but should have an "extra level of understanding," since many people are still unaware of autism and the different ways it can manifest. Swensen set up a website, Finding Cooper’s Voice, to chronicle her family's journey with autism spectrum disorder. With the site, she hopes to offer families struggling with autism a means to "figure out how to co-exist and not hide out in our homes." You can watch Swensen's heartfelt video, below, and learn about the signs of autism — many of which are, in fact, invisible, by heading over to Autism Speaks.

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