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polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

The latest plunge in oil prices has dealt a heavy blow to Iraq's stagnating economy, threatening the new government's ability to rebuild after the war with the Islamic State group and provide basic services to areas roiled by recent protests. Brent crude oil, used to price international purchases, briefly rose above $85 a barrel in October but has since plummeted to less than $55 — a nightmare for a country like Iraq that derives 95 percent of its revenue from oil exports. A $111.9 billion draft budget sent to parliament in October projects crude exports of 3.8 million barrels per day to be sold at $56 per barrel. The bill, which includes a 23 percent increase in spending, would leave a deficit of $22.8 billion. But that won't even begin to address the colossal challenge of reconstruction after years of war. Some 1.8 million people have yet to return to their homes, according to the United Nations. Mosul, the country's second largest city, lies partly in ruins, as do many other cities, towns and villages once held by IS militants. Iraq's Planning Ministry estimates the country needs approximately $88 billion for reconstruction. In February, donors at a Kuwait summit pledged $30 billion in loans and investments to finance a portion of the bill, but little progress has been made to fulfill the pledges. In Iraq's oil-rich south, meanwhile, which was spared from the war's devastation, protests have erupted in recent months over unemployment and poor public services. Rolling power outages have been a nationwide problem going back to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, and in the south the tap water is undrinkable. "We were surprised by the plunging oil prices and we have fallen into a big problem," said lawmaker Haneen al-Qado, who chairs parliament's Economy Committee. "The government is not in an enviable position." Iraqis elected a new government earlier in 2018, but it is dominated by the same bickering political factions that have governed the country for the last 15 years. Lawmakers have rejected the draft budget, calling for a new one that would estimate an even lower oil price and allocate even more funds for public investments. Qado says they may not be able to approve a budget until sometime in the first quarter of next year. Until then, the government can only spend one-twelfth of the previous year's allocation each month. While international attention has been focused on the devastation in northern and western Iraq, and the protests in the south, the budget crisis has also taken a heavy toll on Iraqis living in more stable areas. Construction projects across Baghdad have been stalled for years, with half-finished buildings turned into neighborhood garbage dumps. Kadhim Nima Khudair's construction company signed contracts in 2014 to build four schools at a cost of $5 million. By the following year, three of them were 80 percent complete, but then public funds dried up as the government launched the costly war against IS. When oil prices started to recover in 2017, the government began paying installments again, but only for the projects that were mostly completed. Now the payments have stopped again pending the budget negotiations. None of the schools have been completed, and Khudair has fallen deeply into debt, forcing him to lay off some 500 workers and sell family homes and cars. "I don't want any profit now, I only want my capital back," Khudair said. "We have been struggling all these years. People are still knocking on my door, asking for their money." Sami al-Araji, the head of the National Investment Commission, told an economic conference in December that hundreds of projects worth an estimated $54 billion are delayed. He called for a major overhaul of the economy that would promote investment and lessen the country's reliance on oil. "We have to think of all alternatives," he said. "The country has promising opportunities." That's easier said than done. Efforts to diversify the economy have been stymied by political infighting and corruption going all the way back to 2003, fueling cycles of war and instability. "Our fate is attached to oil," Khudair said. "When it's down, our blood pressure rises." ——— Follow Sinan Salaheddin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sinansm

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

CLOSE President Donald Trump says he's likely to meet the North Korea leader early next year and that he's in "no rush" to engage in de-nuclearization talks with Pyongyang. (Nov. 7) AP People watch a TV news program showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's New Year's speech at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday. The letters on the screen read: "North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's New Year Speech." (Photo: Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press) SEOUL, South Korea – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Tuesday he hopes to extend his high-stakes nuclear summitry with President Donald Trump into 2019, but also warns Washington not to test North Koreans’ patience with sanctions and pressure. During his televised New Year’s speech, Kim said he’s ready to meet with Trump at any time to produce an outcome “welcomed by the international community.” However, he said the North will be forced to take a different path if the United States “continues to break its promises and misjudges our patience by unilaterally demanding certain things and pushes ahead with sanctions and pressure.” Kim also said the United States should continue to halt its joint military exercises with ally South Korea and not deploy strategic military assets to the South. He also made a nationalistic call urging for stronger inter-Korean cooperation and said the North is ready to resume operations at a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and restart South Korean tours to the North’s Diamond Mountain resort. Neither of those is possible for South Korea unless sanctions are removed. Some analysts say North Korea has been trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul while putting the larger burden of action on the United States. Pyongyang over the past months has accused Washington of failing to take corresponding measures following the North’s unilateral dismantlement of a nuclear testing ground and suspension of nuclear and long-range missile tests. More: Trump 'likes' Kim Jong Un, says South Korean President Moon Jae-in More: North Korea warns US sanctions could 'block the path to denuclearization forever' Kim used his New Year’s speech a year ago to start a newfound diplomatic approach with Seoul and Washington, which led to three summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and a historic June summit with Trump in Singapore. Kim also met three times with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which boosted his leverage by reintroducing Beijing – Pyongyang’s main ally – as a major player in the diplomatic process to resolve the nuclear standoff. But nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled in recent months as they struggle with the sequencing of North Korea’s disarmament and the removal of U.S.-led sanctions against the North. The North has also bristled at U.S. demands to provide a detailed account of nuclear and missile facilities that would be inspected and dismantled under a potential deal. The hardening stalemate has fueled doubts on whether Kim will ever voluntarily relinquish the nuclear weapons and missiles he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival. In his meetings with Trump and Moon, Kim signed vague statements calling for the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearization that bears no resemblance to the American definition, with Pyongyang vowing to pursue nuclear development until the United States removes its troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan. The North used a blunt statement last month reiterated its traditional stance on denuclearization, saying it will never unilaterally give up its weapons unless Washington removes what Pyongyang describes as a nuclear threat. Washington and Pyongyang have yet to reschedule a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean officials after the North canceled it at the last minute in November. There are views that North Korea wants a quick second summit because it thinks it can win major concessions from Trump that they probably couldn’t from lower-level U.S. officials, who are more adamant about the North committing to inspections and verification. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/31/kim-jong-un-talks-donald-trump/2455660002/

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

President Trump is known for spinning lies ― lots and lots of lies ― but now he’s adding mixed messages to his verbal arsenal. On Monday, the president sent out a New Year’s greeting on Twitter that managed to pack lots of self-pity and passive-aggression into an 11-second clip. “While I’m at the White House working, you’re out there partying tonight. But I don’t blame you,” he said in the tweet. “Enjoy yourselves. We’re going to have a great year. Have a really, really happy new year.” Although many Americans were busy getting ready for their New Year’s Eve celebrations, some Twitter users were happy to take time out to mock the president mercilessly. Hmm, dealing with being detained while others are free to come and go. Might be good practice? — Declan Cashin (@Tweet_Dec) January 1, 2019 Yeah, working on more ways to take credit for the good, and blame others for the bad. — Kris (@_Froggyluv) January 1, 2019 Personally, I’m saving my bottle of champagne for when you’re indicted. pic.twitter.com/FPahGjlqse — Rysa Walker (@RysaWalker) January 1, 2019 HappyNewYrs pity: "While I work u party!" Poor guy. What u working on? Amnesty for more useless fences? I'd ask u to work on trade, homelessness, drugs, health &everify, but all u touch goes to rot. Stocks worst yr in decade! Even Fox lost to MSNBC (1st time in 17yrs) #PrimaryDJT — Dennis Michael Lynch (@realDennisLynch) January 1, 2019 Don't you mean - As we head into this new year, I wish everyone health, happiness and prosperity. As President, I pledge to work across the aisle, do away with the wall, and free the families being held at the border. Happy New Year! That's what a real leader would have said! pic.twitter.com/ifTjDo3loA — Terry DeCarlo (@Terry_DeCarlo) January 1, 2019 One person did offer a potential resolution the president might want to adopt for 2019.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

He blamed immigrants and lawmakers, not the White House, for the tense situation at the border, where thousands of Central Americans are stranded in Mexico — and two Guatemalan children have died in Border Patrol custody in Texas and New Mexico this month. “One of the reasons why it’s so difficult to keep people from coming — obviously it’d be preferable for them to stay in their own homeland but it’s difficult to do sometimes, where they live — is a crazy, oftentimes conflicting series of loopholes in the law in the United States that makes it extremely hard to turn people around and send them home,” Kelly said. “If we don’t fix the laws, then they will keep coming,” he continued. “They have known, and they do know, that if they can get here, they can, generally speaking, stay.”

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Image copyright Getty Images A new energy price cap has now come into force - but householders can still get a better deal by shopping around, consumer groups say. Regulator Ofgem has estimated that the new cap will save 11 million people an average of £76 a year. Typically, the cap means that typical usage by a dual fuel customer paying by direct debit will cost no more than £1,137 a year. Consumer organisations say that people could save more by switching suppliers. "The introduction of this cap will put an end to suppliers exploiting loyal customers. However, while people on default tariffs should now be paying a fairer price for their energy, they will still be better off if they shop around," said Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice. "People can also make longer-term savings by improving the energy efficiency of their homes. Simple steps, such as better insulation or heating controls, are a good place to start." How the cap works Households in England, Scotland and Wales on default tariffs - such as standard variable tariffs - should be better off after the cap is introduced. Consumers in Northern Ireland have a separate energy regulator and already have a price cap. Those on a prepayment meter already have a price cap in place. Those who chose their tariff are ineligible. Savings depend on how much energy is used in the household and how the bill is paid. The cap is per unit of energy, not on the total bill. So people who use more energy will still pay more than those who use less. The cap is on the unit price of energy, and the standing charge. So the cost of electricity - for those on default tariffs - is capped at 17p per kWh. Gas is capped at 4p per kWh. Dual fuel users will pay no more than £177 a year for a standing charge; electricity-only users will pay no more than £83, and gas users £94. Ofgem will review the tariff in February, and then adjust it in April and October each year. It has said that the level of the cap is likely to rise in April 2019, to reflect the higher cost of wholesale energy. As a result, the average annual saving in 2019 is likely to be lower than £76. The regulator will then judge the effect on the energy market in 2020, and the secretary of state will then decide whether to extend it by another year, or whether to end it at that time. "The energy price cap can only be a temporary fix - what is now needed is real reform to promote competition, innovation and improved customer service in the broken energy market," said Alex Neill, from Which?. What do the suppliers think? Some have already changed the way they organise their tariffs. Centrica - which owns the largest UK supplier, British Gas - has said that it will mount a legal challenge to the way the cap has been calculated. It is applying for a judicial review against Ofgem, saying the regulator had set the threshold too low. "Through this action Centrica has no intention to delay implementation of the cap, and does not expect the cap to be deferred in any way," the company has said in a statement. "As we have previously said, we do not believe that a price cap will benefit customers but we want to ensure that there is a transparent and rigorous regulatory process to deliver a price cap that allows suppliers, as a minimum, to continue to operate to meet the requirements of all customers." Will the cap lead to less switching? Those who have argued against the introduction of a price cap have said it will be counter-productive, as it will lead to fewer people switching - where the potential savings are greater. Which? has argued that some of the cheapest deals on the market have already disappeared, as suppliers needed to make up some of the money lost as a result of the cap. It analysed deals priced at £1,000 a year or less for a medium energy user at the beginning of the year compared to now, and found there had been a sharp drop in availability.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Rapper Meek Mill (Photo: Marcus Ingram/WireImage) From protesters demanding the release of rapper Meek Mill, to the passage of the FIRST STEP Act, to midterm election results that gave Florida's former felons the right to vote and the prosecution of Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke for the murder of black teenager Laquan McDonald, 2018 included incredible milestones in prison reform and painful reminders of the nation's continued need to make progress when it comes to fighting implicit bias and bettering cop-community relations. Below are the top 15 columns published on Policing the USA this year. The USA TODAY digital vertical focuses on all things related to race, the justice system and how the media covers it. These were the most popular columns of the year — in terms of interaction and engagement. Thanks for reading. And look for more coverage next year. — Eileen Rivers, editor, Policing the USA By Ben Crump "The Constitution, as a founding document that influences every aspect of how we live, should not be interpreted as a whole, but rather picked apart and scrutinized. It should be viewed through a lens that takes into account the social and political context of our time. An integral part of our history and progress as a nation is the ability to recognize past wrongs and atrocities, not excuse them." By David Plouffe and Mark Holden "The two of us don't agree on much — one of us is a former Obama administration official and the other works for Koch industries. But we both believe adamantly in the need for second chances and in the economic boon our country would experience if we fully gave them to people with criminal records who have paid their debt to society." By Heidi Washington and John Wetzel "Unfortunately, less attention has been paid to obstacles people face while in prison, but the FIRST STEP Act’s expansion of job training and other programs intended to reduce recidivism rates changes that, opening the door to larger reforms like reinstating Pell Grants for people in prison." By Semon Frank Thompson and Jerry Givens "At its core, this case is about whether Missouri can use a lethal injection to execute Bucklew, even though he has a rare medical condition that could lead to him choking on his own blood during the execution. The prospect of a botched procedure raises serious constitutional concerns — carrying out this procedure on Bucklew may well violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on 'cruel and unusual punishment' by resulting in an excruciating death." By Tim Swarens "As with most child trafficking victims, Brown's background was filled with abuse, neglect and exploitation long before she met Allen. Her story compels us to think about the devastating consequences of commercialized sexual abuse. It also calls us to think about what justice truly means. And it's one that should lead Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam to grant clemency for Brown before he leaves office in January." By Demario Davis "Some states have deemed it OK to arrest kids as young as 9 and 10 and charge them in juvenile court for making stupid childhood mistakes like fighting in the school yard or filching a candy bar from a convenience store. Those third- and fourth-graders will be worried about lawyers and court dates instead of focusing on important aspects of childhood development like learning to read and write." By Kevin Ring "Years before my time in Cumberland, I supported mandatory minimums. As a staffer on Capitol Hill in the late 1990s, I helped draft a new law that instituted mandatory minimums for people who sold methamphetamine. Back then, I thought prison and sentencing reform were problems that only plagued “others” — the bad people, the wayward children from broken homes, the criminal class. I ended up serving time with people whose unnecessarily long sentences were caused by the laws I helped write." By Sheila A. Bedi and David Anderson Hooker "The history of the Chicago Police Department reflects that of so many others in America, and makes it clear that law enforcement has been a driver of injustice. Over the past 50 years, major scandals have rocked the CPD that show the department has targeted and worked hard to control black and brown communities. The department killed Black Panther Illinois chapter chairman Fred Hampton. Late Chicago police Commander Jon Burge's department was tied to the torture of black and brown people for decades with impunity. Both of these scandals occurred long before Van Dyke's." By Yolanda Young "It's impossible to know whether Kavanaugh is guilty of the things that Christine Blasey Ford accused him of when they were both in high school. But it isn't hard to see how an attitude of entitlement (propped up by wealth and class) brings men like Kavanaugh an advantage in our criminal justice system." By Terrance Coffie "I've been a resident of New York now for eight years. And as our primary elections approach, I'm reminded of that time when, because of my history of incarceration, I was not able to vote at all. I'm far from the only person in America who has had this basic right stripped away. Only two states, Maine and Vermont, maintain full voting rights for felons. California allows people in county jails to vote. But most states impose severe restrictions. And an estimated 6 million Americans who have been convicted of a felony (many of whom have served their time) are shut out of this year's primaries and midterm elections." By Chandra Bozelko and Ryan Lo "Conditions of modern prisons — tiny, overcrowded cells, lack of sanitation, infestation, lack of ventilation — make people inside so desperate for respite that they’re sometimes willing to accept even unconscionable deals, like working for little to no money. Paying someone 86 cents per hour to do backbreaking work is such an insult to human dignity that it's not acceptable anywhere in this country except in prison, places intent on stripping people of their humanity." By Rashad Robinson "This win should shift the ground under the feet of every prosecuting attorney in America. Ferguson has been one of the biggest flash points of the modern civil rights movement. And the movement just delivered a coordinated, effective political response in that St. Louis suburb, showing prosecutors around the country that it’s no longer safe to assume they can protect police without answering for it at the ballot box later." By Nila Bala "Meek Mill, the 2016 Billboard Music Award winner for top rap album, has become the unlikely poster child for the failures of our probation system. His Tuesday release from Pennsylvania's Chester State Correctional Institution on bail left many scratching their heads and others outraged over the failures that put him in custody in the first place. He had been locked up since November on a minor probation violation. His comments from prison last week to CNN's Don Lemon perfectly sum up the unreasonable effects of our system." By Anquan Boldin, Malcolm Jenkins and Doug Baldwin "As a nation, we must expand efforts to break cycles of injustice at the voting booth, where one of the most influential people in the criminal justice system gets elected: the American prosecutor." By Anquan Boldin "My cousin Corey Jones tossed a football with me long before I ever caught passes in the NFL. ... Corey’s death has been devastating for my family, but this is not just about our own quest for justice. There are profound repercussions for our nation, too. Equality and accountability are missing. There are too many injustices in our justice system. There is an urgent need for positive change in our country. That’s why I am speaking out and imploring you to listen." You can find more of this year's content at Policing the USA. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/spotlight/2018/12/31/meek-mill-first-step-act-policing-usa-covered-2018/2455388002/

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

The U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees America's nuclear and missile arsenal, boasted in a New Year's Eve tweet that it's ready if ever needed "to drop something much, much bigger" than the Times Square ball. The tweet was accompanied by video of B-2 bombers dropping two 30,000-pound conventional weapons at a test range, according to CNN, which aired the video. The tweet on Strategic Command's account was replaced with an apology: "Our previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values. We apologize. We are dedicated to the security of America & allies." The first tweet read in part: "#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball...if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger."

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

TOKYO — Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, said Tuesday that he was willing to have a second summit meeting with President Trump, but he paired the offer with a threat that if international sanctions against his country were not lifted, the North would “have no choice” but to return to nuclear confrontation. “I am willing to meet the United States president at any time for the betterment of our international community,” Mr. Kim said in his New Year’s Day speech, broadcast on North Korea’s state-run television. “However, if the United States does not keep its promise in our international community and misinterprets our patience and intention and continues with the sanctions, then we have no choice for the sake of our national interest and peace of the Korean Peninsula but to come up with new initiatives and new measures.” Wearing a suit and tie and sitting in an overstuffed leather armchair in a book-lined room, Mr. Kim offered a largely motivational speech about the need to strengthen the North Korean economy. But he took the opportunity to reiterate a demand that South Korea cease all military drills with “other foreign sources.” “Those should be completely stopped,” Mr. Kim said. “That is our stance.” There were sparse direct references in the speech to denuclearization. But Mr. Kim said the country would not be willing to take further steps toward removing its nuclear weapons unless the United States reciprocated.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

TOKYO — Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, said Tuesday that he was willing to meet President Trump for another summit meeting at any time, and promised not to produce new nuclear weapons. But characteristically, Mr. Kim’s offer also carried a threat: He vowed that if international sanctions against his country continued, the North would “have no choice” but to pursue a different path from the diplomatic gestures that have characterized the past 12 months. “I am willing to meet the United States president at any time for the betterment of our international community,” Mr. Kim said in his New Year’s Day speech, broadcast on North Korea’s state-run television. “However, if the United States does not keep its promise in our international community and misinterprets our patience and intention and continues with the sanctions, then we have no choice for the sake of our national interest and peace of the Korean Peninsula but to come up with new initiatives and new measures.” Wearing a suit and tie and sitting in an overstuffed leather armchair in a book-lined room, Mr. Kim offered a largely motivational speech about the need to strengthen the North Korean economy. But he took the opportunity to reiterate a demand that South Korea cease all military drills with “other foreign sources.”

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Image copyright Europoean Photopress Agency North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said he is committed to denuclearisation, but warned he will change course if the US continues its sanctions. He made the remarks during his closely-watched annual New Year address. Last year's speech set the country on an unprecedented path of international diplomacy with South Korea and the US. Mr Kim met US President Donald Trump to discuss denuclearisation in June 2018 but with few results so far. Last year's rapprochement came after a turbulent 2017 marked by North Korea testing missiles that could reach the US mainland and an escalation in rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington with both sides trading insults and threats of nuclear destruction. In the speech broadcast on state television early on Tuesday, Mr Kim said "if the US does not keep its promise made in front of the whole world... and insists on sanctions and pressures on our republic, we may be left with no choice but to consider a new way to safeguard our sovereignty and interests". He said he was ready to meet Mr Trump again at any time. North Korea is subject to various sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions related to its banned nuclear and ballistic missile weapons programmes. It was in last year's New Year speech that Mr Kim announced North Korea would take part in the Winter Olympics hosted by the South, which led to a thaw in relations. After a flurry of diplomatic activity, in April Kim Jong-un met South Korean President Moon Jae-in for a summit at the inter-Korean border. They met another two times after that but the most historic summit of 2018 was the North Korean leader's meeting with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June. In what was the first time a North Korean leader met a sitting US president, the two signed a vaguely phrased agreement to improve ties and work towards denuclearisation. Image copyright AFP Image caption This was a historic moment in June, but Kim and Trump have grown further apart since Since the Trump-Kim summit though, less progress has been made than at least optimists had been hoping for. While the North has stopped missile and nuclear testing, there's been little indication that Pyongyang is working towards complete and verifiable denuclearisation as the US has called upon it to do. The North has dismantled some testing facilities but there are allegations it is continuing its weapons programme. President Trump has said he expects a second summit to take place as early as February but there has been no confirmation yet. There are also plans for Kim Jong-un to travel to the South's capital Seoul for another inter-Korean summit but again, those plans have not been confirmed yet.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Image copyright RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP/Getty Image caption UN chief Antonio Guterres (L) met former Farc members in Colombia in 2018 The United Nations says 85 former Farc rebels have been killed in Colombia since the group signed a peace accord with the government two years ago. Most of the murders were by illegal armed groups and drug gangs fighting over former Farc territories, UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a report. Mr Guterres urged Colombian President Ivan Duque, a vocal critic of the peace deal, to do more to protect ex-rebels. Colombia suffered 52 years of conflict until peace was reached in 2016. The Farc, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is now a political party known as the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force with five seats in the Senate and five in the House of Representatives. What does the UN say? In the last three months alone, "14 ex-members of Farc were murdered", Secretary-General Guterres said in his quarterly report on the UN's mission to Colombia. He also said he was "hugely" concerned that more than 400 social leaders and human rights activists have been killed in Colombia since 2016. "Most of the murders were in zones abandoned by former Farc (fighters) and where there is limited state presence," the UN report said. Since the peace accord, Colombia's weak state apparatus has been unable to take control of these isolated regions. Instead, illegal armed groups have taken over and the security forces and president are increasingly coming under fire for not stemming the violence. Who are the Farc? The Farc was formed in 1964 with the stated intention of overthrowing the government and installing a Marxist regime. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Farc guerrilla fighters seen here in 1998 Their main founders were small farmers and land workers who had banded together to fight against the staggering levels of inequality in Colombia at the time. After modest beginnings, the left-wing group rose to prominence through the 1980s and 1990s as its association with the drugs trade improved its financial standing. At its peak it was the largest and best-equipped guerrilla force in Latin America. Over half a century of conflict between Farc and the authorities, eight million people have dead, disappeared or been displaced. The 2016 peace deal, reached after years of negotiations, resulted in some 7,000 ex-fighters laying down their weapons.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Previously churches were protected from being sued by a legal precedent which said they did not legally exist Victims of sexual abuse can finally sue the Catholic church in New South Wales after the state government abolished the infamous “Ellis defence”. In October the NSW parliament passed laws to allow survivors to seek justice and sue unincorporated organisations, including churches, following recommendations by the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. The laws came into effect on 1 January and are retrospective, allowing past victims to seek justice. “I’m pleased my first item of business in 2019 is to condemn the ‘Ellis defence’ to the scrapheap and create a fairer civil litigation system for all child abuse survivors,” the NSW attorney general, Mark Speakman, said. The survivors of child sexual abuse deserve compensation before they die | Robert Llewellyn-Jones Read more “This means all survivors of institutional child abuse in NSW will now have the same access to compensation through civil litigation, no matter what kind of organisation is responsible.” Previously, churches were protected from being sued by a legal precedent which said a church, the assets of which are held in a trust, could not be sued because it did not legally exist. The precedent was set when the Catholic church won a legal battle against John Ellis, a former altar boy who was sexually abused at the age of 13 by the former Bass Hill parish priest Father Aidan Duggan. Ellis sued Duggan, the trustees of the Roman Catholic church for the archdiocese of Sydney, and Cardinal George Pell, but the NSW court of appeal found Pell and the trustees were not proper defendants in the proceedings. It ruled the trustees didn’t control Duggan and weren’t responsible for his conduct, and couldn’t be sued. Duggan died in 2004, soon after proceedings commenced, and Ellis was left with no one to sue over the abuse he suffered. Under the new laws an institution must now identify a defendant with sufficient assets to pay any potential claim, or have the court appoint associated trustees who can access trust property. The national child abuse apology shows that institutions can heal, as well as harm | Katharine Murphy Read more “We are now going to see a pathway to justice for survivors of abuse that they haven’t had in the past,” said Ellis. “It’s been a long, long battle.” He told the ABC he had felt a sense of responsibility because his case put it “in black and white” that the church could not be sued, but in the years since, and particularly during the royal commission, he felt very supported. The survivor advocacy and support group Care Leavers Australasia Network welcomed the change and thanked Ellis. However, it also noted many survivors were “too old [and] frail to sue” over abuse from decades ago. The NSW legislation also established statutory liabilities for child abuse, which the NSW justice department said would “establish more fair and certain avenues for survivors to pursue civil action”. “It is also to encourage institutions to do everything they can to prevent the abuse from occurring in the first place.” The new laws stipulate a duty of care on organisations which exercise care, supervision or authority over children, to prevent abuse perpetrated by individuals associated with it. It reverses the onus of proof onto institutions, requiring they prove they took reasonable steps to prevent abuse. It also extends vicarious liability to cover abusers who are not employees but whose relationship with the organisation is “akin to employment”. Victoria passed laws to close the legal loophole in May. In June Western Australia became the final state to sign up to a national redress scheme.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Looking almost banker-like in a business suit and sitting in an upholstered leather armchair, Kim Jong Un gave his annual televised New Year's address on Tuesday. The North Korean leader's big curtain-raiser for 2019 comes after a couple of very tumultuous years. In 2017, his rapid-fire missile tests brought him to the brink with President Donald Trump and 2018 saw his sudden rise on the world stage with hints of detente, summits with China and South Korea and an unprecedented meeting with Trump in Singapore. What's ahead in 2019? Here are four big takeaways. ——— 1. IT'S STILL ABOUT THE ECONOMY About two-thirds of the entire speech was devoted to the economy. Kim last year jettisoned his signature slogan of "simultaneous tracks" — developing nuclear weapons and the economy at the same time — in favor of claiming to focus everything on the economy, which is now the national buzz phrase. Kim hasn't given up on his nuclear weapons, he just says he has perfected the arsenal enough to shift the focus of "socialist construction" elsewhere. Kim also didn't commit to anything in the speech like the kind of major, structural economic changes that might generate sustainable growth, but which could also undermine his own power. Even so, he does appear to genuinely want to boost the standard of living of his nation and to grow the country's economy. He underscored that desire by calling for an increased electricity supply and pointed to the possibility of developing nuclear power, along with the need for modernization and innovation across the board. Despite repeated mentions during the speech of the North's cherished principle of "Juche," or self-reliance, Kim understands his country's economic realities. He is openly seeking more foreign investment and trade. And he's hoping to enlist Seoul's help in that endeavor. ——— 1. KIM WANTS THE KOREAS TO BE TAKING THE LEAD Though the attention was on his relationship with Trump, Kim's biggest moves in 2018 were toward South Korea. Kim's pitch has been that it is high time Pyongyang and Seoul were leaders in determining their own fate, which is also a shot at the role of the United States on the peninsula. Kim's speech was broadcast simultaneously in South Korea. Addressing both nations at once, he called on all Koreans to — in his decidedly North Korean manner — to "uphold the slogan "Let's usher in a heyday of peace, prosperity and reunification of the Korean Peninsula by thoroughly implementing the historic North-South declarations!" Those declarations include a good deal of joint efforts to help Kim with his economic goals, including the renovation and reconnection of the North's railways to the South. He said he would support the reopening of an industrial park that relies on South Korean capital investments and a tourism zone on the North's Mount Kumgang, or Diamond Mountain. Such efforts can't go very far until sanctions are lifted. Seoul is a lot more willing to forge ahead than Washington. Pyongyang is also seeking an end to joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, while Washington is pushing the South to pay more of the cost of keeping its troops there. The growing Washington-Seoul discord is an added bonus for Kim. Expect him to keep pushing those buttons. ——— 1. THE NUKES AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE ANYTIME SOON In the most tantalizing sentence of the speech, Kim hinted at a possible cap on nuclear weapons production if the U.S. takes equivalent steps, whatever that might mean. He also stood by his commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which, contrary to some wishful thinking in Washington and Seoul, does not mean the unilateral denuclearization of North Korea. Both areas need to be further clarified in negotiations. Kim's calculus has never been to throw away his nuclear arsenal and hope for the best from a newly friendly and supportive administration in Washington. It has from the start been an effort to play the nuclear hand to its greatest advantage. Kim sees nuclear weapons as a valuable deterrent to a U.S. military strike. Unless that threat is eliminated, he won't give them up. He also believes his weapons put him in a position of strength from which he can make demands and extract concessions. The North has been pretty clear about these points. But Kim spelled them out once again. His message to Trump: Start addressing his concerns about security and sanctions relief soon or he will have no choice but to try a different, less friendly approach. And he is warning that he will be able to make a case to China, Russia and possibly even Seoul that if things fall Washington will be the one to blame. ——— 1. KIM WANTS TO BE SEEN AS HIS OWN MAN This year's 30-minute speech was an exercise in making Kim look worldly, firmly in charge and comfortable in his own skin — as opposed to the caricatures of him that are so popular in the West. Though not a stirring public speaker, Kim confidently delivered the pre-recorded address in a study with dark-wood paneling and the national and ruling party flags. He was flanked by big portraits of his charismatic grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung, and his father, the late leader Kim Jong Il, who was famously speech-averse and never spoke like this on New Year's. That lineage is as important as ever. But the images beamed to the nation and to the world Tuesday of Kim delivering the speech were engineered to have a freshness to them that is uniquely his — and to leave the impression that Kim Jong Un is his own man, a modern, respectable leader who belongs on the world stage. He may very well be sharing that stage next with Trump, for their second summit. ——— Talmadge has been the AP's Pyongyang bureau chief since 2013. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @EricTalmadge

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

CLOSE As many as 22 states and the District of Columbia could see increases to their minimum wages in 2019, according to the National Employment Law Project. USA TODAY A judge's gavel and chair in the foreground of a courtroom. (Photo: Getty Images) New year, new state laws. A slew of new state laws take effect with the turn of the calendar — ranging from minimum wage changes to pink hunting gear to a mandatory cursive writing curriculum. One state will even begin paying people to relocate for remote work. A few of the more notable changes: Minimum wages will increase At the start of the new year, 19 states and 21 cities will increase their minimum wage, according to the National Employment Law Project. About 17 million people from New York to California will have received pay bumps, the project estimates, once additional minimum wage increases are phased in throughout the year. Illinois hunters can wear bright pink Hunting enthusiasts in Illinois have a new wardrobe choice. In addition to bright orange, hunters can wear bright pink in 2019 to meet safety requirements during gun deer seasons. The bill passed unanimously in both state legislatures. It is believed that the new color option will help hunters see each other and prevent accidents while hunting upland game with a firearm. Previously, hunters were limited to orange hats and upper outer garment displaying a minimum of 400 square inches of orange. Related: Amish man fined $28,000 for poaching 26-point buck Related: This family went hunting Christmas Eve but got stuck in a snowstorm. They weren't found until 4 days later. Vermont will pay remote workers to move there Remote workers who relocate to Vermont can apply for up to $10,000 from the state government, starting Tuesday. To promote economic growth, Vermont will cover expenses related to moving and working from home or a co-working space, including computer software and hardware. The state will give up to $125,000 to qualified applicants in 2019 on a first-come, first-served basis. California requires pet stores only sell rescues Only dogs, cats and rabbits from shelters or rescue groups can be sold at pet stores in California, beginning Tuesday. If pet store owners don't follow the law, including posting where the pet came from on its cage, they will pay up to a $500 fine. Hawaii legalizes medically assisted suicide Following six other states and Washington, D.C., Hawaii will allow doctors to provide fatal prescription medicine to terminally-ill patients who make several requests. Two health care providers must confirm a patient's diagnosis and decision-making ability. A counselor must also verify depression or other conditions prevent the patient from making an informed decision. Ohio requires kids learn cursive Ohio has decided that cursive isn't obsolete. A law will require students to write legibly in cursive by the end of fifth grade. The handwriting instructional materials must be part of school curriculum by July 1. Tennessee bans 'sanctuary' policies With a law prohibiting local jurisdictions and law enforcement from adopting "sanctuary" immigration policies, officials may be forced to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. No cities in the state formally hold a “sanctuary city” status, reported the Commercial Appeal, a member of the USA TODAY Network. One county sheriff's office, however, may have to reverse its policy on refusing to detain people suspected of living in the country without documentation. Massachusetts raises legal smoking age Joining six other states, Massachusetts will only allow those 21 and older to purchase tobacco products. Young adults who turned 18 — the previous age requirement — before the new year can still buy cigarettes, however. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/12/31/2019-new-laws-illinois-pink-hunting-vests-ohio-cursive/2455018002/

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

President Donald Trump sent a New Year’s greeting to the American people, reminding them that he was still at the White House trying to get funding for border security. “While I’m at the White House working, you’re out there partying tonight, but I don’t blame you,” Trump said in a video posted to Twitter. The president remained at the White House on Monday, missing his traditional New Year’s Party at Mar-a-lago as the partial government shutdown continued. “Enjoy yourselves, have a great year, have a really, really, Happy New Year!” Trump continued. The president again defended his demand for a wall, noting that walls worked for securing the border. “Throughout the ages some things NEVER get better and NEVER change,” he wrote. “You have Walls and you have Wheels. It was ALWAYS that way and it will ALWAYS be that way! Please explain to the Democrats that there can NEVER be a replacement for a good old fashioned WALL!” Trump previewed a forthcoming government funding bill from future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019. “The Democrats will probably submit a Bill, being cute as always, which gives everything away but gives NOTHING to Border Security, namely the Wall,” he wrote. The president dismissed other border security funding as “tech stuff” and “meaningless bells and whistles.” “You see, without the Wall there can be no Border Security,” he said.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Looking almost banker-like in a business suit and sitting in an upholstered leather armchair, Kim Jong Un gave his annual televised New Year's address on Tuesday. The North Korean leader's big curtain-raiser for 2019 comes after a couple of very tumultuous years. In 2017, his rapid-fire missile tests brought him to the brink with President Donald Trump and 2018 saw his sudden rise on the world stage with hints of detente, summits with China and South Korea and an unprecedented meeting with Trump in Singapore. What's ahead in 2019? Here are four big takeaways. ___ 1. IT'S STILL ABOUT THE ECONOMY About two-thirds of the entire speech was devoted to the economy. Kim last year jettisoned his signature slogan of "simultaneous tracks" — developing nuclear weapons and the economy at the same time — in favor of claiming to focus everything on the economy, which is now the national buzz phrase. Kim hasn't given up on his nuclear weapons, he just says he has perfected the arsenal enough to shift the focus of "socialist construction" elsewhere. Kim also didn't commit to anything in the speech like the kind of major, structural economic changes that might generate sustainable growth, but which could also undermine his own power. Even so, he does appear to genuinely want to boost the standard of living of his nation and to grow the country's economy. He underscored that desire by calling for an increased electricity supply and pointed to the possibility of developing nuclear power, along with the need for modernization and innovation across the board. Despite repeated mentions during the speech of the North's cherished principle of "Juche," or self-reliance, Kim understands his country's economic realities. He is openly seeking more foreign investment and trade. And he's hoping to enlist Seoul's help in that endeavor. ___ 1. KIM WANTS THE KOREAS TO BE TAKING THE LEAD Though the attention was on his relationship with Trump, Kim's biggest moves in 2018 were toward South Korea. Kim's pitch has been that it is high time Pyongyang and Seoul were leaders in determining their own fate, which is also a shot at the role of the United States on the peninsula. Kim's speech was broadcast simultaneously in South Korea. Addressing both nations at once, he called on all Koreans to — in his decidedly North Korean manner — to "uphold the slogan "Let's usher in a heyday of peace, prosperity and reunification of the Korean Peninsula by thoroughly implementing the historic North-South declarations!" Those declarations include a good deal of joint efforts to help Kim with his economic goals, including the renovation and reconnection of the North's railways to the South. He said he would support the reopening of an industrial park that relies on South Korean capital investments and a tourism zone on the North's Mount Kumgang, or Diamond Mountain. Such efforts can't go very far until sanctions are lifted. Seoul is a lot more willing to forge ahead than Washington. Pyongyang is also seeking an end to joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, while Washington is pushing the South to pay more of the cost of keeping its troops there. The growing Washington-Seoul discord is an added bonus for Kim. Expect him to keep pushing those buttons. ___ 1. THE NUKES AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE ANYTIME SOON In the most tantalizing sentence of the speech, Kim hinted at a possible cap on nuclear weapons production if the U.S. takes equivalent steps, whatever that might mean. He also stood by his commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which, contrary to some wishful thinking in Washington and Seoul, does not mean the unilateral denuclearization of North Korea. Both areas need to be further clarified in negotiations. Kim's calculus has never been to throw away his nuclear arsenal and hope for the best from a newly friendly and supportive administration in Washington. It has from the start been an effort to play the nuclear hand to its greatest advantage. Kim sees nuclear weapons as a valuable deterrent to a U.S. military strike. Unless that threat is eliminated, he won't give them up. He also believes his weapons put him in a position of strength from which he can make demands and extract concessions. The North has been pretty clear about these points. But Kim spelled them out once again. His message to Trump: Start addressing his concerns about security and sanctions relief soon or he will have no choice but to try a different, less friendly approach. And he is warning that he will be able to make a case to China, Russia and possibly even Seoul that if things fall Washington will be the one to blame. ___ 1. KIM WANTS TO BE SEEN AS HIS OWN MAN This year's 30-minute speech was an exercise in making Kim look worldly, firmly in charge and comfortable in his own skin — as opposed to the caricatures of him that are so popular in the West. Though not a stirring public speaker, Kim confidently delivered the pre-recorded address in a study with dark-wood paneling and the national and ruling party flags. He was flanked by big portraits of his charismatic grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung, and his father, the late leader Kim Jong Il, who was famously speech-averse and never spoke like this on New Year's. That lineage is as important as ever. But the images beamed to the nation and to the world Tuesday of Kim delivering the speech were engineered to have a freshness to them that is uniquely his — and to leave the impression that Kim Jong Un is his own man, a modern, respectable leader who belongs on the world stage. He may very well be sharing that stage next with Trump, for their second summit. ___ Talmadge has been the AP's Pyongyang bureau chief since 2013. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @EricTalmadge

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Image copyright PA Image caption The Penrose Inquiry estimated that up to 3,000 Scots were infected with contaminated blood Scottish ministers were told in 2003 that the UK Health Department was investigating a claim that contaminated blood was being "knowingly supplied". Newly released files show then health minister Malcolm Chisholm informed the Scottish Executive of the allegation. Papers reveal recommendations for compensations levels were also discussed. Thousands of people were given blood products infected with hepatitis and HIV in the 1970s and 1980s. New testing procedures were introduced in 1991, but the allegation referred to by Mr Chisholm was made after the system was overhauled. Prison inmates In September the first UK-wide inquiry into the public health disaster heard that more than 25,000 people could have been affected. The scandal emerged after the UK government imported blood clotting factor from the US, where much of the plasma used came from donors, such as prison inmates, who sold their infected blood. It was then given to haemophiliacs and other patients in the UK. Image copyright PA Image caption Then health secretary Malcolm Chisholm informed the cabinet of the claims in 2003 The 2003 documents also record Mr Chisholm telling the Cabinet he only had money for the cheapest of the options drawn up to compensate those given contaminated blood in Scotland. The papers state: "Mr Chisholm said that there were two current issues in relation to Hepatitis-C infection through contaminated blood products. "The first was the calls from Lord Ross, as chair of the Expert Group, in relation to the level of compensation for those affected and the range of people who should receive it. "The second was a claim that the government had knowingly supplied contaminated blood after procedures had been introduced in 1991 to test for the virus used in blood transfusions. "This would be a very serious matter, if true, and the Health Department was investigating the basis of the claim." Compensation Earlier that year, in a briefing paper to the Scottish Cabinet, Mr Chisholm said he could only release up to £10m from the health budget towards a compensation scheme for those in Scotland given contaminated blood. An expert group headed by Lord Ross recommended to a parliamentary committee that all those infected were given compensation payments, including to dependants of those who had become infected and died. Image caption The Penrose Inquiry was branded a whitewash by campaigners But Mr Chisholm said the scheme should be targeted at those still alive with long-term symptoms and signs of liver inflammation. Scotland was the first part of the UK to hold an inquiry into the infected blood scandal, but this did not take place until 2009 and did not report until 2015. The Penrose Inquiry, which was branded a whitewash by campaigners, said few matters could have been done differently and made only a single recommendation. That was that anyone in Scotland who had a blood transfusion before 1991 should be tested for Hepatitis C if they have not already done so. It estimated 3,000 patients in Scotland were infected with tainted blood products. Last year the Scottish government announced increased compensation payments for those who contracted chronic hepatitis through contaminated blood, including to the partners of those who died.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Interested in Afghanistan? Add Afghanistan as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Afghanistan news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest An Afghan official says the Taliban launched two blistering attacks in northern Sar-e-Pul province, killing 15 members of the country's security forces. In one attack, on the outskirts of the provincial capital, heavy artillery fire by Afghan forces trying to repel the insurgents sent local residents fleeing for safety. Provincial council chief Mohammad Noor Rahmani says that along with 15 policemen killed, 21 were wounded in the two attacks, which took place late on Monday. He says fierce gunbattles raged for several hours in Sayyad district and outside Sar-e-Pul, the provincial capital. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousof Ahmadi claimed responsibility for both attacks. The Taliban have been carrying out near-daily attacks targeting Afghan forces despite stepped-up efforts by the United States to find a negotiated end to the country's 17-year war.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

A biological male transgender prisoner has been transferred to a woman’s prison facility after complaints he felt like a “sex slave” while an inmate in the men’s prisons across Illinois. Deon Hampton, 27, who now calls himself “Strawberry,” is serving a ten-year burglary sentence. He was moved to Logan Correctional Center, a women’s facility, reports the Chicago Tribune. Prior to the transfer, Hampton was an inmate in Dixon Correctional Center, a maximum-security men’s prison. “We are thrilled,” said Vanessa del Valle, one of Hampton’s lawyers with the MacArthur Justice Center. “Strawberry has waited a long time for this transfer.” “It’s an important first step that we hope will lead to the Department of Corrections recognizing that all trans women need to be free from abuse and discrimination while in custody,” she said. “And that includes properly housing them in women’s prisons.” In May, the Trump administration rolled back Obama-era rules about transgender individuals in federal prisons. The Bureau of Prisons released a policy change to its manual, which now states the department will use “biological sex” as the basis for assigning facilities and bathrooms. Hampton has sued the Illinois Department of Corrections multiple times over claims he suffered abuse in the state’s male facilities. He has sought to be recognized as a woman in order to be protected from the alleged abuse, sexual assaults, and discrimination. Court documents reportedly claim that Hampton said a corrections officer pulled down his shorts and asked questions about his genitals. He also alleged a lieutenant forced him into phone sex and corrections employees coerced him to perform sex acts with a cellmate. According to the Tribune, a Corrections Department spokeswoman said the department “carefully considered Hampton’s housing placement before making the transfer.” Hampton’s attorneys say his lawsuits against officers for alleged abuse are continuing. “It’s also our hope that this will not be a one-time review and that they will begin to do a similar all-encompassing review of all trans people in the Illinois Department of Corrections,” said Alan Mills, executive director of the Uptown People’s Law Center, which also represents Hampton. “I think that the great failing with the department has been its unwillingness to talk to people individually to find out what they best need, and that is what the law requires.” While Hampton’s transfer was not ordered by a judge, corrections officials were required to re-evaluate why his requests for transfer to a women’s facility had been denied. The court also required that Hampton be allowed to attend a support group for transgender individuals.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

CLOSE El Paso Fire Department Deputy Chief Jorge Rodriguez talks about the city's response to an ICE release of migrants Christmas week in Downtown. Vic Kolenc and Rudolfo Gutierrez, El Paso Times El Paso Fire Chief Mario D'Agostino, left, and Ruben Garcia, Annunciation House executive director, listen to a reporter's question at a Dec. 28 press conference about several hundred immigrants being dumped by federal agents at an El Paso bus station during the Christmas weekend. (Photo: VIC KOLENC/EL PASO TIMES) EL PASO, Texas — Federal officials say the dumping of several hundred immigrants at an El Paso bus station over Christmas weekend, which caused a short-term crisis, was a mistake, city officials said Friday. Federal authorities dropped off hundreds of migrants at the Greyhound station in downtown El Paso with no notice late that Sunday, sparking an outcry from community organizations that scrambled to find shelter and food for migrants. Authorities continued releasing hundreds of migrants in downtown through Christmas Day. "According to ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials we communicated with, they stated (the unscheduled release) was just a mistake," El Paso Fire Chief Mario D'Agostino said during a press conference at the city's 9-1-1 call center in Northeast El Paso. "It was an error on their part." Most of the immigrants come from Central America, with many fleeing violence or extreme poverty. Federal officials made no indication that leaving about 600 immigrants at the Greyhound bus station from Sunday through Christmas Day was related to the current federal government shutdown, D'Agostino said. The shutdown is tied to an impasse between Congress and the White House over funding for a border wall proposed by President Donald Trump. More: ICE to release 500 more migrants in El Paso, marking the largest single day release El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez said in a phone interview with The El Paso Times that he and the fire chief talked to the ICE regional director, who apologized for the unscheduled release of the immigrants in El Paso during Christmas weekend. City officials plan to talk to ICE and other officials next week about "the need to come up with some solutions" on the entire process of releasing immigrants and "how to treat them," Gonzalez said. The city brought in police officers as a "public safety" measure at the Greyhound bus station Sunday night when about 200 immigrants were left there by ICE agents, Gonzalez said. Ruben Garcia, executive director of Annunciation House, and Deputy Fire Chief Jorge Rodriguez, city Emergency Management coordinator, talk about immigrants being dumped by federal agents at an El Paso bus station during a Dec. 28 press conference. (Photo: VIC KOLENC/EL PASO TIMES) The city's Sun Metro bus system also supplied heated buses for immigrants to stay in until shelters could be found, officials said. The response by city agencies and others shows "Texas and the rest of the United States that we're very compassionate as a community," Gonzalez said. The continual flow of immigrants has become more of an issue since June when the federal government set up temporary tent shelters, including one in Tornillo, near El Paso, to house immigrant children separated from their parents. The immigration issue has again come to the forefront after two immigrant children recently died in Border Patrol custody. More: El Paso immigrant shelters have 'busiest year ever,' fueled by Central America surge Ruben Garcia is executive director of the Annunciation House, a nonprofit El Paso organization that aides and shelters immigrants. He said the normal process of ICE bringing immigrants to shelters or hotels identified by Annunciation House has been working well for years. Problems come when immigrants are unexpectedly released at the bus station or on the streets, which happened during Christmas weekend and earlier in October, he said. Annunciation House has received more than 2,000 immigrants per week for the last two months — the "fourth surge" of immigrants into the area in the past six years, Garcia said. However, the number of immigrants staying near El Paso has actually decreased in recent years, Garcia said, as has the number of immigrants apprehended by Border Patrol. "Nobody stays in El Paso; everybody moves on" after receiving temporary housing and care packages, Garcia said of the current surge of immigrants. Immigrants move to other areas of the United States by getting bus or airplane tickets, usually paid for by' relatives, Garcia said. The immigrants can stay in the United States until their cases are heard in federal court. "So, El Paso doesn't have to deal with a growing refugee population," Garcia said. Follow Vic Kolenc on Twitter: @vickolenc. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/31/ice-release-immigrants-el-paso-bus-station-mistake-city-officials-told/2455954002/

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Image copyright PA Image caption The Most Rev Justin Welby's sermon will be shown on BBC One The Archbishop of Canterbury will use his New Year's sermon to encourage the public to go into 2019 "in a spirit of openness towards each other" after the "struggles and divisions of recent years". The Most Rev Justin Welby will say the UK is now "wonderfully" more diverse. But he will add that people "disagree on many things, and we are struggling with how to disagree well". The sermon will air on BBC One on New Year's Day at 12:55 GMT. Delivering his message from Lambeth Palace in London, the archbishop will say: "Turn on the television, read the news, and you see a lot that could tempt you to despair. But the leading figure in the Church of England will add: "Hope lies in our capacity to approach this new year in a spirit of openness towards each other - committed to discovering more of what it means to be citizens together, even amid great challenges and changes. "That will involve choosing to see ourselves as neighbours, as fellow citizens, as communities each with something to contribute. "It will mean gathering around our common values, a common vision, and a commitment to one another. "With the struggles and divisions of recent years, that will not be easy. But that difficult work is part of the joy and blessing of being a community." 'Peace and unity' In his Christmas service at Canterbury Cathedral, the archbishop urged people to forget the "languages of hatred, tribalism [and] rivalry". Instead, he told his congregation to aim for peace and unity at a time of challenge and discord. He stressed the importance of the language of love replacing the language of conflict.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Three people were stabbed by a knifeman in Manchester, England, as the United Kingdom prepared to welcome in the New Year on Monday evening. The alleged knifeman shouted “Allah”, according to eyewitnesses, before stabbing a man and woman at Manchester Victoria railway station. A police officer was also subsequently stabbed before the man was overpowered around 2100. The Manchester Evening News reports the remarks of eyewitness Sam Clack, a BBC producer who was at the station while travelling home, who said: “I just heard this most blood-curdling scream and looked down the platform. We continue to respond to an incident at #ManchesterVictoria station. The station is currently closed. Officers are at the scene and a man has been arrested. — BTP Gtr Manchester (@BTPGtrMcr) December 31, 2018 “What it looked like was a guy in his 60s with a woman of similar age and another guy all dressed in black… It looked like they were having a fight but she was screaming in this blood-curdling way. “I saw police in high-viz come towards him. He came towards me. I looked down and saw he had a kitchen knife with a black handle with a good, 12 inch blade.” Clack said the suspect shouted as he was pinned down and arrested by police officers: “As long as you keep bombing other countries this sort of shit is going to keep happening.” An unconfirmed video purporting to be of the arrest shared to social media showed a man in Manchester Victoria station shouting “Allahu Akhbar”. Greater Manchester Police sad there was “no wider threat at this time.” The British Transport Police said in a statement that a man had been detained while two members of the public had been hospitalised with knife injuries, and an officer had been stabbed in the shoulder. Greater Manchester Police confirmed the injuries were serious, but not life-threatening. Although the motivation of this knife attack has not been confirmed, the stabbing has drawn inevitable comparisons on social media to the May 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, which took place just yards away from Manchester Victoria station. The Islamist suicide bombing killed 23 and injured hundreds at an Ariana Grande concert as parents picked up their children after the event. The youngest victim of Islamist killer Salman Abedi was just eight years old.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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Image copyright PA/Stefan Rousseau Government ministers discussed the need to "close down" public perception of a cover-up over the Dunblane massacre, official papers have revealed. Thomas Hamilton murdered 16 children and their teacher in Dunblane Primary School on 13 March 1996. Police reports from 1991 on Hamilton were sealed for 100 years to protect the children concerned. The discussion is revealed in newly-released papers dating from the then Scottish Executive in 2003. The 100-year ban covered police reports about incidents of alleged abuse at a summer camp run by Hamilton. However, speculation emerged that the reports linked the mass murderer with members of the Scottish establishment. Image copyright PA Image caption A memorial plaque at the entrance to the Garden of Remembrance at Dunblane Cemetery Extracts published during a public inquiry led by Lord Cullen showed a 1991 police report recommended Hamilton should be prosecuted for his activities at the summer camp and have his gun licence revoked, but no further action was taken. 'Incomprehensibly lengthy' The Cabinet minutes from February 2003 said: "If the documents were released earlier into the public domain there would be a possibility that individuals who were still alive could be identified. "The documents had, however, been made available in full to the Dunblane Inquiry." The minutes said that there was a "strong public perception of a cover-up." They said: "A 100 years closure seemed incomprehensibly lengthy to the public... what mattered was to close the story down." The minutes said that releasing a "sanitised" version of the report would be "more difficult than generally thought and administratively costly." They said: "Doing so might not be sufficient to satisfy concerns. "One alternative might be to indicate that the papers had been reviewed by an independent person who could assure the public that they did not contain the kind of references which had been suggested." In 2005, the then lord advocate Colin Boyd lifted the restriction on some documents closed under the 100-year rule.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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Lower toll attributed to strategies put in place by police and other agencies, including a 50% increase in drug tests in Victoria Road toll falls considerably in 2018, with Victoria and SA at record lows The number of road deaths fell considerably in several states in 2018, with Victoria and South Australia posting record low tolls. Provisional figures show Victoria recorded 214 deaths, compared with 259 in 2017 and the previous record low of 243 in 2013. Across South Australia last year 80 people lost their lives, compared with 100 in 2017. Its previous record low was 86 in 2016. Deaths in NSW were down nearly 10% at 352, compared with 386 in 2017. Victoria’s head of road policing operations, Supt John Fitzpatrick, said the figures were encouraging, but there were still too many fatalities on Victorian roads. “The fact that there were 45 fewer lives lost in 2018 will be of no comfort to those who are mourning someone who was precious to them,” Fitzpatrick said on Tuesday. “One life lost is one too many.” Australian cyclist deaths surge and road safety strategy 'failing' Read more There was a reduction of almost a third in lives lost on Victorian country roads, but a 26.7% rise in the number of pedestrian fatalities. Men accounted for the majority of lives lost, 155, compared with 59 women. The 25- to 29-year-old age bracket experienced the biggest increase in lives lost, with 15.8% more killed than in 2017. Police increased the number of drug tests by 50%, which means they will do 50,000 more in this financial year compared with the previous one. South Australia’s assistant commissioner, Paul Dickson, said the fall in that state could be attributed to different strategies put in place by police and other agencies. “There’s no silver bullet here,” he said. “But enforcement is obviously from our position a strong factor.” Dickson said there was no reason to be complacent heading into 2019. “I don’t think we can ever say we’re all safe on the roads because unfortunately people make bad decisions,” he said. “And whenever someone makes a bad decision there’s a high risk that we’ll either have a fatality or a serious injury.” The SA opposition has questioned the government’s decision to axe the Motor Accident Commission, which had a strong track record of delivering effective road safety campaigns. “The record low result is welcome news for South Australians, however there is much more work to do,” the opposition police spokeswoman, Katrine Hildyard, said. The state government said closing down the commission would save up to $3m a year and was an inevitable consequence of the decision to privatise its insurance arm in 2014. Other agencies are expected to pick up its work and the government has said the budget for road safety advertising would be maintained.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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Image copyright Getty Images While political uncertainty remains over Brexit, life must go on as normal for British families - and that includes making plans for holidays. And with the promise of new year's flight sales, many will be poised with their bank cards ready to snap up a deal. The UK is due to leave the EU on 29 March - right before the Easter holidays. We still don't know how Britain will leave the EU - with a deal, or without. If the UK leaves with Theresa May's deal, then there will be a transition period until the end of 2020, in which little will actually change. If not, then there will be more questions about what's happening after Brexit day. Here are some answers for anyone keen to have a sunshine break in the EU to look forward to during these dark winter days. Am I OK to book a holiday in the EU? You might be wondering if it is safe to book at all, given the dire warnings about what might happen in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) says that while some things may change after Brexit, whether there is a deal or not, there's no reason to be concerned when booking a holiday. "There's nothing to suggest holidays won't go ahead as planned next year," a spokeswoman for the organisation, which offers advice to travellers and represents travel agents and tour operators, told BBC News. "We're heading into the travel industry's sales period, when some of the best deals and discounts are available, so we want people to carry on booking as normal." She added: "European holiday destinations want to continue to welcome UK holidaymakers; it's a very big market for them." And as for travelling by plane, the government has said that "flights should continue" as they do today, if there is no deal, adding: "Both the UK and EU want flights to continue without any disruption." Abta added: "Flights will be able to go and come back again and fly over the EU." What documents will I need? "The European Commission has said that even in a no-deal scenario, UK travellers won't need a visa," Abta said. But British people will need to apply for and buy another document to travel to member states, post-Brexit. The ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorisation System), which will cost €7 (£6.30) and be valid for three years, won't come into force until 2021 though. So for the time being, you can carry on without any extra documents. Under the Brexit deal, EU citizens and UK nationals will continue to be able to travel freely with a passport or identity card until the end of the transition period in 2020. When that ends, the European Commission has offered visa-free travel for UK nationals coming to the EU for a short stay, as long as the UK offers the same in return. Image copyright Getty Images Will there be bigger queues at the airport? It might be a bit too soon to say "without knowing whether it's a deal or no deal", says Abta. The government says from 29 March, if there's no deal, most people won't experience any difference to security screening at airports. The European Commission has proposed measures to avoid there being any extra security or screening of passengers from the UK when they're transferring to onward flights at EU airports. Do I have to get a new passport? No deal? If the UK leaves without a deal, then new rules will apply. You'll have to check if your current passport meets those rules and renew it if not. Basically, British passport holders will be considered third country nationals as part of the Schengen agreement. Other third country nationals are those from places that aren't in the EU or European Economic Area, like the US and Australia. So according to the Schengen Border Code, passports from these countries have to have been issued within the previous 10 years and be valid for another three months from the date you plan to depart the Schengen area, which makes up 26 European states. But because you're allowed to stay in the Schengen area for up to 90 days, the government is advising you make sure your passport is valid for at least another six months after your arrival. Abta advises people check their passports now to see how long they're valid for. If there's a deal, your passport will be valid until its date of expiry for anywhere within the EU. Image copyright Getty Images What about the European Health Insurance Card - Ehic? About 27 million people in the UK have Ehics - which entitles the holder to state-provided medical treatment in the EU and other countries which have reciprocal healthcare agreements with Brussels. They cover pre-existing medical conditions and emergency care. The scheme will continue during the transition period, so long as the withdrawal agreement is ratified. Image copyright Getty Images If there is no deal, then in theory the cover provided by an Ehic would cease to exist. But there could be attempts to put emergency measures in place for UK citizens, or for there to be reciprocal arrangements with individual EU countries. It's unclear at the moment what the outcome might be. Are there any changes to insurance? Abta says it's worth making sure what your travel insurance covers and checking the terms and conditions. For any trips to the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein after 29 March, travellers should make sure their insurance policy covers any possible disruption, the government says. If you already have insurance sorted, then your insurer should let you know if there are any changes that might affect you after the UK leaves the EU. What will happen with compensation for airline delays? That's set to be the same as it is now once the UK leaves the EU - so passengers will be entitled to assistance or compensation if there are boarding problems, delays or cancellations. What about ferries and Eurostar? Ferries are covered by international maritime convention so there won't be any changes, says Abta. And it's the same for Eurostar - you'll still be protected by EU regulation on rail passengers' rights, as that's being brought into UK law. Image copyright Getty Images Are mobile phone charges changing? There's currently a system in place so you can travel in the EU and won't be charged extra for roaming - so you can use your mobile for calls, text and data like you would in the UK. If there's no deal, that wouldn't be guaranteed any more. But the government has said it would put measures in place so that there would be a limit on the cost of mobile data usage abroad. It would be set at £45 per month - it's currently 50 euros under EU law. What happens if I want to drive abroad - will I need a new licence? If there's no deal, your licence might not be valid by itself when driving in the EU. It means you might need to get hold of an International Driving Permit (IDP) as well, which costs £5.50. You might also need one of those to hire a vehicle. Is anything changing with duty free? Those keen on getting cheaper bottles of perfume or wine at the airport can breathe a sigh of relief. "People will still be entitled to duty-free allowances," Abta said. What about my pets? Any pet passports issued in the UK will not be valid for travel to the EU if there's no deal. If you want your pet to come with you, whether in a deal or no-deal scenario, you will have to contact your vet at least four months before you plan to travel, so you can get the latest advice. In short, the rules will change if the UK leaves with no deal. You would have to get your cat, dog or ferret microchipped and vaccinated against rabies before it can travel - it would then need a blood sample to be taken at least 30 days after having the vaccination. This test is basically to make sure the vaccine has worked. You'd then have to wait another three months before you could travel.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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Image caption Gary Jamieson said it was an opportunity to learn a new skill Former soldier Gary Jamieson lost both legs and an arm in an explosion in Afghanistan eight years ago but sees no reason why he can't master new skills. The 38-year-old spent six years in rehab after suffering catastrophic injuries on his second tour of Afghanistan with 1st Battalion, the Scots Guards, in 2010. He was one of the first to sign up for training at a new factory designed to give veterans a chance to retrain. The plant in Bishopton in Renfrewshire is the first of its kind in the UK. Gary was on afternoon patrol when his platoon entered a minefield. "My foot must have been on the pressure plate of an IED (improvised explosive device)," he told BBC Scotland. "When I turned, I just detonated it. "Once the sand came out of my eyes I tried to sit up and realised my legs were away. "Then my hand fell out of my sleeve, so that was quite a shocking experience." Image caption Sgt Gary Jamieson returned home after weeks of treatment for his injuries Many months later, he had recovered enough to return home to his family in Stonehouse in Lanarkshire. The whole village turned out to greet their local hero. But Gary says his rehab was a long haul because the "stumps" of his limbs were badly damaged. He now has rods permanently fixed into the stumps. "Without that I wouldn't be able to walk," he says. "This is what has gave me new life in the past two years." He did run his local pub for a while but says it wasn't for him. Now three times a week, he makes the 90-minute journey to put in a shift at Scotland's Bravest Manufacturing Company in Renfrewshire. Refurbished and fitted out last year at a cost of £750,000, it offers successful applicants 18 months of training and shop floor experience. It hopes to train them in a variety of skills and get them into paid employment. Real world None of the equipment in the factory is adapted. It is left to those involved to find ways to work it safely, preparing them for the real world. The workshop - equipped with a high pressurised water-jet that can cut virtually any material wafer thin - produces road and rail signs, and a range of other products. Gary says it took him a few days to master the water-jet and start making road signs. "There was not too much pressure put on us to be exactly perfect straight away," he says. "Obviously, with me having three amputations, we have to find different ways to do certain things." But apart from a machine to help him lift the heavy metal sheets, Gary can manage most of the technical skills and is part of a team again. 'Pushing supermarket trollies' He says he hadn't realised how much he missed the camaraderie of fellow soldiers. Michelle Ferguson, the director of SBMC, says the company is responding to a need. In 2015, a study found that ex-service personnel are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as civilians across Scotland. She says: "It's not about helping veterans get a job pushing supermarket trolleys. "Success will mean helping those working here make the transition to sustainable employment, on a wage higher than the living wage. "Everyone on a placement here has a disability - from chronic PTSD to someone like Gary, a triple amputee." The operation is run by Royal British Legion Industries, with funding from bodies including the Scottish government, Poppy Scotland and the National Lottery. Gary says he hopes he can be an example to other injured soldiers. "They will think 'if he can do it, maybe I can do it'," he says.

polusa

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SEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that his country remains focused on denuclearization and expressed a desire to hold another summit with President Trump, but threatened to go down a “new path” if the U.S. continued its sanctions and pressure campaign. The televised remarks, made on Tuesday during Mr. Kim’s annual New Year’s address, appeared aimed at maintaining last year’s mood of diplomacy with Washington. But the North Korean leader’s rare public statements also underlined the country’s refusal to take further...

polusa

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered a new peace overture in his New Year’s address, saying his country is refraining from producing nuclear weapons, a gesture some experts interpreted as a potential opening for resuming talks with President Trump. His address comes at an important juncture in Washington’s relations with Pyongyang. While North Korea has refrained from nuclear testing and missile launches since Mr. Trump’s Singapore meeting with Mr. Kim in June, no discernible progress has occurred since then. ...

polusa

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LONDON (AP) – Police picked up a group of 12 migrants found on a beach in southwestern England as top British officials met Monday to discuss the increasing numbers of people attempting to cross the English Channel from France to England. The British government agency that oversees immigration said nine men, two women and a 10-year-old child were in the group, who reported being Iranian. The people received health checks and were turned over to immigration officials for interviews, the Home Office said. A surge of Channel crossings in recent weeks prompted Home Secretary Sajid Javid to call a crisis meeting with top officials from Britain’s Border Force and National Crime Agency and senior government officials. Javid said afterward that the government planned to put two more Border Force ships on patrol in the English Channel to protect both the lives of migrants making the risky journey and Britain’s borders. About 230 migrants tried to traverse the water from northern France to southern England in December, he said. Farage: UK Must ‘Stand Up to EU and France’ to End Channel Migrant Crisis https://t.co/rKpqYUOPgK — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 30, 2018 “We must remember that this is one of the most treacherous stretches of water that there is, 21 miles with people taking grave risk,” Javid said. He said two Border Force cutters would be called back from abroad to join a third already stationed in the Channel. Matthew Saltmarsh, a spokesman for the U.N. Refugee Agency, said U.N. officials also are worried about an upturn in risky crossings by migrants. “The increase in attempted crossings of the Channel to the UK from France since autumn is a real concern,” he said in an email. “The winter conditions and use of flimsy vessels present significant dangers to asylum seekers attempting the crossing.” British and French officials have been discussing increasing patrols of the waterway that separates their countries and connects the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The narrow Channel’s length is 563 kilometres (350 miles), but navigating it can be dangerous for passengers in the small boats typically used for ferrying migrants because of heavy shipping traffic.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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MADRID (AP) – Spanish police say they have seized 3.25 metric tons (3.64 short tons) of hashish in two operations against drug trafficking across the Strait of Gibraltar. The Guardia Civil says in a statement Monday that police made 42 arrests and broke up what they believed to be one of most important drug smuggling gangs operating between Spain and North Africa. Five boats and five vehicles used by the alleged gang were seized. The arrests were made in Cadiz and Malaga, on Spain’s southern coast, and in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, east of Tangier. The statement gave no details about the nationalities of those arrested nor when the operations happened. Boat trips across the Strait of Gibraltar can be as short as 9 miles (14 kilometres) from Morocco to Spain.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Tuesday he hopes to extend his high-stakes nuclear summitry with President Trump into 2019, but also warns Washington not to test North Koreans' patience with sanctions and pressure. During his televised New Year's speech, Kim said he's ready to meet with Mr. Trump at any time to produce an outcome "welcomed by the international community." However, he said the North will be forced to take a different path if the United States "continues to break its promises and misjudges the patience of our people by unilaterally demanding certain things and pushes ahead with sanctions and pressure." Kim also said the United States should continue to halt its joint military exercises with ally South Korea and not deploy strategic military assets to the South. He also made a nationalistic call urging for stronger inter-Korean cooperation and said the North is ready to resume operations at a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and restart South Korean tours to the North's Diamond Mountain resort. Neither of those is possible for South Korea unless sanctions are removed. Some analysts said North Korea has been trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul while putting the larger burden of action on the United States. Pyongyang over the past months has accused Washington of failing to take corresponding measures following the North's unilateral dismantlement of a nuclear testing ground and suspension of nuclear and long-range missile tests. But North Korea has not allowed international inspectors to verify that the testing site is actually unusable, despite saying it would. And satellite images show that Kim's regime is still rapidly developing its nuclear weapons program, CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports. "They think they can outsmart the Americans in this regard," Victor Gao, an expert on international relations in Beijing, told Tracy. Washington and Pyongyang are trying to arrange a second summit between Mr. Trump and Kim, who met in Singapore on June 12. "If the United States takes sincere measures and corresponding action to our leading and pre-emptive efforts, then (U.S.-North Korea) relations will advance at a fast and excellent pace through the process of implementing (such) definite and groundbreaking measures," said Kim, who delivered the speech sitting on a leather chair, wearing a black suit and gray-blue tie. A woman walks past a television screen showing a New Year's speech by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a railway station in Seoul on Jan. 1, 2019. Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images "It is the unwavering position of our party and the republic's government and my firm will that the two countries as declared in the June 12 joint statement ... take steps to establish a permanent and stable peace regime and push toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," he said. "Therefore, we have declared domestically and internationally and took various actions showing our commitment that we will no longer create and test nuclear weapons and will not use or spread them." Kim hailed the results of the North's diplomatic activities in 2018, including his three meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Kim said an inter-Korean military agreement reached in their last summit in September to reduce conventional military threats was "realistically a non-aggression declaration." Kim also emphasized the development of the North Korean economy and, without elaborating, mentioned nuclear power as part of the country's plans to boost electricity production. Kim's speech was closely watched as North Korean leaders traditionally use New Year's statements to reflect on the past year and issue major policy goals for the year ahead. Kim used his New Year's speech a year ago to start a newfound diplomatic approach with Seoul and Washington, which led to his meetings with Moon and Mr. Trump. Kim also met three times with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which boosted his leverage by reintroducing Beijing — Pyongyang's main ally — as a major player in the diplomatic process to resolve the nuclear standoff. But nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled in recent months as they struggle with the sequencing of North Korea's disarmament and the removal of U.S.-led sanctions against the North. The North has also bristled at U.S. demands to provide a detailed account of nuclear and missile facilities that would be inspected and dismantled under a potential deal. The hardening stalemate has fueled doubts on whether Kim will ever voluntarily relinquish the nuclear weapons and missiles he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival. In his meetings with Mr. Trump and Moon, Kim signed vague statements calling for the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearization that bears no resemblance to the American definition, with Pyongyang vowing to pursue nuclear development until the United States removes its troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan. The North in a blunt statement last month reiterated its traditional stance on denuclearization, saying it will never unilaterally give up its weapons unless Washington removes what Pyongyang describes as a nuclear threat. The statement jarred with Seoul's claim that Kim is genuinely interested in negotiating away his nukes and suggested that the North will potentially demand the United States withdraw or significantly reduce the 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea, a major sticking point in any disarmament deal. Some analysts said it's becoming clear the North intends to keep a nuclear arsenal and turn the talks with the United States into a bilateral arms reduction negotiation between two nuclear states, rather than a unilateral process of surrendering its arsenal. Washington and Pyongyang have yet to reschedule a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean officials after the North canceled it at the last minute in November. There are views that North Korea wants a quick second summit because it thinks it can win major concessions from Mr. Trump that they probably couldn't from lower-level U.S. officials, who are more adamant about the North committing to inspections and verification.

polusa

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2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. By Tim Stelloh Chicago recorded fewer murders in 2018 than last year, authorities said Monday, a tally that marked the city’s second year of declining homicides after a surge of violent crime in 2016. The Chicago Police Department said there was a 27 percent decline in murders in 2018 from 2016 — approximately 557 murders this year — when the city recorded a staggering 762 homicides. There were 648 murders in Chicago in 2017, the department said in a news release. Chicago Police work the scene after a gunman opened fire at Mercy Hospital on Nov. 19, 2018. David Banks / AP file The department also recorded declines in shootings, robberies, burglaries, car thefts and car-jackings in 2018, the release said. It did not say whether rapes had fallen or increased. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has previously said that “emboldened offenders who acted without a fear of penalty from the criminal justice system” were behind the 2016 crime spike. The Chicago Tribune reported Monday that Johnson attributed the recent declines to improved technology, more involvement from federal authorities in gun crimes and efforts to rebuild community trust. “Are we where we want to be? Of course not," he said, according to the newspaper. “I do think we are taking steps in the right direction.” Despite the decline, Chicago still recorded considerably more homicides in 2018 than New York City, where authorities reported 283 murders between January 1 and Dec. 23.

polusa

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President Donald Trump took a shot at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in a Monday interview with the Fox News Channel, saying one must “ask her psychiatrist” if the progressive lawmaker, still smarting from the fallout over her DNA test results, thinks she can defeat him in 2020. “Well, that I don’t know,” the president told host Pete Hegseth on Fox News’s All American New Year when asked if Warren thinks she can win the White House. “You’d have to ask her psychiatrist.” President Trump, who frequently hammers Warren for alleging Native American lineage, often referring to her as “Pocahontas,” joked with Hegseth that the host may possess more ancestry than the 2020 hopeful. “I think you have more than she does, and maybe I do too, and I have nothing,” President Trump told the host. “So, we’ll see how she does. I wish her well, I hope she does well, I’d love to run against her.” Earlier Monday, Warren launched a presidential exploratory committee, cementing herself as the first serious Democrat candidate to move towards mounting a White House run. In her first press conference since announcing the committee, the Massaachutes Democrat vowed to “build a grassroots campaign,” telling reporters outside her home that she is “in this fight all the way.” “It’s already got people from all across this country who are going to be part of it, and together, we’re going to make change,” she said. “And if people out there see it and want to be part of it, I hope they go to elizabethwarren.com and join us. Because this is how we’re going to build the movement that will change America.” Pressed on whether she would have revealed the DNA results in a different fashion, Warren danced around the question, answering instead: You know — look — I have put it all out there. It’s there for anyone to see, but at the end of the day, this is going to be about this election going forward, is going to be about the tens of millions of families across this country who work hard, who play to the rule, and who just time after time, take one body blow after another. Some White House officials expressed glee over Warren’s bid, with one unnamed staffer predicting to the Daily Mail that the progressive lawmaker “will go down in flames.” ‘It’s a dream come true,’ another official told the British newspaper. “Can we get [Democrat Sen. Richard] Blumenthal to run too? More phony Democrats, please.”

polusa

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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was rocketing toward history Monday as it neared the most distant world ever visited by a human-made object: the mysterious, icy Ultima Thule, 1 billion miles beyond Pluto and an astounding 4 billion miles from Earth. New Horizons is on track to reach its closest point to Ultima Thule — 2,200 miles — in a flyby at a speed of about 31,500 mph at 12:33 a.m. EST on New Year’s Day. Ultima Thule (officially 2014 MU69) is believed to be a pristine remnant of the birth of the solar system. It could unlock clues to galactic secrets and the process that formed our universe. Ultima Thule orbits the sun from the Kuiper Belt — a massive region of frozen rocky bodies beyond Neptune’s orbit. Its name means “distant places beyond the known world.” Ultima Thule, first spotted by NASA’s Hubble Telescope in 2014, is likely a dark, complex shape, and it could be two bodies. It takes Ultima Thule 298 years to orbit the sun. Clear images so far are only artists’ renderings. Scientists are hopeful New Horizons will capture the real thing. “We’re going to learn more very soon,” John Spencer, New Horizons deputy project scientist, said Monday. “We just can’t wait.” LIVE NOW from @JHUAPL: @NASANewHorizons is zooming toward #UltimaThule, an icy world located ~1 billion miles past Pluto. Join experts as they highlight upcoming milestones and talk about this historic event ahead of the #NewYearsEve flyby: https://t.co/oJKHgKpQjH pic.twitter.com/V73RvCjRT4 — NASA (@NASA) January 1, 2019 The New Horizons mission is operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. The flyby will be covered on the lab’s website, its YouTube channel and NASA TV. Updates will also be posted on Twitter at @NewHorizons2015 and @NASANewHorizons. The craft will collect images and scientific data — including geological and atmospheric information — to beam back to Earth. New Horizons launched in 2006 and rocketed past Pluto in 2015.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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Image copyright Getty Images The retail sector took a battering in 2018. Some 40,000 jobs have been lost or are at risk. Household names like House of Fraser, New Look and Marks & Spencer have been forced to close stores and take a long look at how they do business. A profit warning from Asos , the online fashion firm, in December suggested that even the internet might not be retail's panacea. So, is the industry on life support? Or is there something more fundamental happening? And is technology part of a shift that could ensure the future of the High Street? BBC 5 Live's Wake Up to Money team has been looking at the key technology trends that could ensure the future of retail. Artificial Intelligence Many of us will have unwrapped a smart speaker this Christmas but few will have thought about its value as a shopping tool. "I think the day (most people) make purchases on it will be the day they don't look back" says Jon Copestake who has been researching the future of shopping for EY, the accountancy firm. But he thinks artificial intelligence (AI) will be a double-edged sword for the High Street. Image copyright Getty Images "I think that consumers will become much more time-poor and they are going to rely much more on algorithms or AI to actually pre-empt their shopping needs, that will free up time for them to focus on shopping with the brands and products that really engage them," he says. "There will always be a place for consumers to go to shops, to experience things, but I think those things are going to be things that they care about." Data This year will be remembered as one full of scandals involving our personal data. However, experts think that data holds the key to the future of shopping. Thread, the online personal shopping platform, uses customer information to help men, especially those with a fear of fashion. Image copyright Thread The company launched six years ago as a purely online operation but Terry Betts, its head of business development, thinks Thread's ethos could work equally well on the High Street. "I think what you've got to give back is something that is infinitely better than just walking into a regular store," he says. "I guess essentially what we are building is a store where everything is in your size and your budget and we know you. We remember what you've bought and so we are only making suggestions based on what you tell us." Mr Betts adds: "I think expectations are high right now. You just have to deliver something that's superior and that's where the loyalty comes." Influencers There may have been a bit of backlash around fraudulent influencer accounts but micro-influencers in particular are still hitting a sweet spot with key audiences. That kind of personal recommendation has seen millions of pounds of advertising revenue shifted online and for one brand it's meant the resurgence of the Avon Lady. Louise Scott, Avon's chief scientific adviser (pictured), says: "We have six million micro influencers around the world who are all about authentically recommending products, whether it be through social media or it be face-to-face." Image copyright Avon A key part of Avon's turnaround plan, under chief executive Jan Zijderveld, is to make better use of different technology platforms, allowing the company to be more agile. Ms Scott says: "I believe trends today are moving at a speed of light. My challenge as a creator of products is really all about recognising that a product, to be Instagram worthy, actually has to look beautiful as well as work." Clicks trump bricks? Wake Up To Money asked shoppers in Leeds about the future of retail. Most told the programme that they believed the internet will take over from our High Streets as the main way we shop in the future. But some experts disagree. The High Street isn't dead, says Samantha Dover, senior retail analyst at Mintel. "It's the value, the brand awareness that having a physical store presence has that is really important to recognise." She says the best performing retailers recognise that online and physical shopping are intrinsically linked as consumers compare prices and research products or use click and collect services. Retailers will have to change though, says Mr Betts . "I think you're going to see retail as tastemakers. More local, more targeted and recommendation based." You can listen to Wake Up To Money's Future of Shopping Special here.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

MSNBC terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance lambasted President Donald Trump Monday for criticizing “failed” military leaders over their Syria policy, referring to him as a “draft-dodging chickenhawk coward.” “I campaigned on getting out of Syria and other places,” President Trump wrote on Twitter. “Now when I start getting out the Fake News Media, or some failed Generals who were unable to do the job before I arrived, like to complain about me & my tactics, which are working.” …I campaigned on getting out of Syria and other places. Now when I start getting out the Fake News Media, or some failed Generals who were unable to do the job before I arrived, like to complain about me & my tactics, which are working. Just doing what I said I was going to do! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2018 The former U.S. Navy senior chief petty officer and Trump critic responded to the criticism by accusing the president of floundering as a leader, husband, and father. “Draft dodging chickenhawk cowards don’t get to call any Generals “failed. “ You failed at manhood,” Nance wrote. “You failed as “leader”. You failed marriage & as father. You failed at rejecting Treason. Your most spectacular failure was as an American. History will show #TrumpEqualsFailure.” Draft dodging chickenhawk cowards don’t get to call any Generals “failed. “ You failed at manhood. You failed as “leader”. You failed marriage & as father. You failed at rejecting Treason. Your most spectacular failure was as an American. History will show #TrumpEqualsFailure https://t.co/WLaDZr8Hbf — Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) December 31, 2018 On December 20, President Trump announced his decision to withdraw roughly 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, declaring victory over ISIS. However, the pullout, which was met with outcry from establishment lawmakers across the political spectrum, could be slowed, Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters outside the White House Sunday. “I think we’re in a pause situation,” said the South Carolina Republican after lunch at the White House. “I think we’re slowing things down in a smart way,” he said, later noting President Trump understands the withdrawal could place Kurdish fighters in harm’s way. National security adviser John Bolton is scheduled to meet with Israeli and Turkish officials next weekend to discuss the move.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said he hopes to continue denuclearisation talks with Donald Trump in 2019 but used his New Year’s address to warn that he could be forced to take a “new path” if the US persists with sanctions against his regime. Wearing a dark suit and seated on a leather armchair in front of portraits of his predecessors – his father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather Kim Il-sung – Kim said he was willing to meet the US president “at any time” to produce an outcome that would be “welcomed by the international community”. But he added that North Korea would have “no option but to explore a new path in order to protect our sovereignty” if Washington “continues to break its promises and misjudges our patience by unilaterally demanding certain things and pushes ahead with sanctions and pressure”. He did not give details on what that “new path” might entail. Kim Jong-un vows to meet South Korea’s leader frequently in 2019 Read more Kim and Trump signed a vaguely worded statement committing the North to “denuclearisation” during their first meeting in Singapore last June, but negotiations have since stalled over disagreements on the definition of denuclearisation and which side should be the first to make concessions. Pyongyang has demanded that Washington lift sanctions and declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean war, while the US has urged the regime to demonstrate its commitment to denuclearisation. In Tuesday’s televised address, which was also broadcast live in South Korea for the first time, Kim called on South Korea to end its joint military drills with the US – which have largely been halted since his summit with Trump – and not deploy strategic military assets to the South. Reflecting on a year of inter-Korean rapprochement during which he held three summits with the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, Kim said: “Now that North and South Korea decided on the path of peace and prosperity, we insist that joint military exercises with outside forces should no longer be allowed and deployment of war weapons such as outside strategic assets should be completely stopped.” Harry Kazianis, director of defence studies at the Center for the National Interest in Washington, said Kim’s speech showed Pyongyang was “clearly willing to engage in dialogue while working towards denuclearisation with Washington and Seoul – but on its terms”.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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Nine people are hurt after a driver deliberately rammed his vehicle into pedestrians in the Shibuya Ward in Tokyo on New Year’s Day in what the suspect told law enforcement was an act of terror, according to Japanese media. 21-year-old Kazuhiro Kusakabe was reportedly arrested in Tokyo on suspicion of attempted murder after plowing his rental car, fitted with an Osaka license plate, into people on the Takeshita Street in the city’s Harajuku district, which was closed to vehicles for the first day of the year. One unnamed source revealed to Kyodo News that the suspect told police that he “raised a terror attack” in “retaliation for an execution” and vowed not to “make any excuse” for it. The Japanese news outlet stated in its report that is unclear to which execution the suspect was referring. The Mirror UK reports the driver initially fled the scene of the incident and was captured by police 20 minutes later. Following the attack, one witness is quoted by the British newspaper, stating: “There are many police officers in place … running around to prevent entry.” Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has yet to issue a statement on the matter.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

CLOSE Sen. Elizabeth Warren has announced she's forming an exploratory committee for the 2020 election, her first major step toward launching a campaign for president. (Dec. 31) AP President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Tuesday, May 29, 2018, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) ORG XMIT: OTKAH (Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP) WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump would “love to run against” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency on Monday During an interview on Fox News Channel’s “All-American New Year” on Monday night, Trump said he hopes Warren is among the Democrats to run in 2020. “We’ll see how she does, I wish her well," Trump said. "I hope she does well. I’d love to run against her.” Trump has lambasted Warren since his 2016 campaign, when he began derisively labeling her “Pocahontas” in a shot against her claims of Native American heritage. He said Warren “did very badly in proving that she was of Indian heritage,” adding that her decision earlier this year to release a DNA analysis “didn’t work out too well.” Opinion: Is Warren the candidate Democrats have been waiting for? Some doubt it: Today's Talker More: USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll: What do Democrats want in 2020? Someone new – and Biden. But definitely not Hillary When asked if Warren believed she could beat him, Trump responded, "Well, that I don't know. You’d have to ask her psychiatrist." Later, Trump all but predicted his own victory: "If you go just based on the record, I don't see how anybody (else) wins." Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/31/donald-trump-elizabeth-warren-2020/2456355002/

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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The U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), a unified military command responsible for overseeing nuclear weapons, deleted a New Year’s Eve tweet stating it stands ready to drop a large-yield bomb, citing the post’s “poor taste.” The eyebrow-raising New Year’s Eve tweet, which was prompted removed from the command’s official Twitter account, featured previously released footage of a B-2 bomber dropping “a pair of conventional Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) at a test range,” a Pentagon Spokesperson said, according to CNN. “#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball … if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger,” the tweet read. “Watch to the end! @AFGlobalStrike @Whiteman_AFB #Deterrence #Assurance #CombatReadyForce #PeaceIsOurProfession.” Jeff Seldin, a national security correspondent at Voice of America, tweeted a screenshot of the post: Here’s a screenshot of the @US_Stratcom tweet, w/video ready to go pic.twitter.com/t0p6HzPfJe — Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) December 31, 2018 Navy Capt. Brook Dewalt, a press representative for STRATCOM, told CNN that the tweet was “part of our recap of command priorities” and meant to serve as a warning to America’s enemies that the U.S. military is prepared at all time, including New Year’s Eve, to protect the homeland and its citizens. Following the tweet’s removal, STRATCOM’s Twitter account apologized for the seemingly ominous message, stating, “it was in poor taste & does not reflect our values.” “We apologize. We are dedicated to the security of America & allies,” the command added.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

During President Donald Trump’s frenzy of tweets Monday, he appeared to contradict himself on funding for his border wall within minutes. First, he promised: “MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL.” Then, in the next tweet 11 minutes later, he attacked the Democrats for what he predicted will be their decision to allocate “NOTHING to border security, namely the Wall.” MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL through the many billions of dollars a year that the U.S.A. is saving through the new Trade Deal, the USMCA, that will replace the horrendous NAFTA Trade Deal, which has so badly hurt our Country. Mexico & Canada will also thrive - good for all! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2019 The Democrats will probably submit a Bill, being cute as always, which gives everything away but gives NOTHING to Border Security, namely the Wall. You see, without the Wall there can be no Border Security - the Tech “stuff” is just, by comparison, meaningless bells & whistles... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2019 He followed up with a head-scratcher about “some things” that “NEVER get better and NEVER change,” adding, “You have Walls and you have Wheels.” ...Remember this. Throughout the ages some things NEVER get better and NEVER change. You have Walls and you have Wheels. It was ALWAYS that way and it will ALWAYS be that way! Please explain to the Democrats that there can NEVER be a replacement for a good old fashioned WALL! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2019 Trump is now claiming that “savings” from an updated NAFTA agreement with Mexico will pay for the wall, but how that would work remains a mystery. Trump’s contradictions and flip-flops are complicating any compromise that would end the partial shutdown of the government, which began Dec. 22. Outgoing chief of staff John Kelly told the Los Angeles Times in an interview last week that the idea of a concrete wall was dropped by the administration early in 2018 for a fence or another kind of barrier. “To be honest, it’s not a wall,” Kelly said. Trump spoke of “beautiful steel slats,” rather than a wall, in mid-December. On the night Trump refused to sign a spending measure without funds for a wall, triggering the shutdown, he posted a video calling for a “wall or a slat fence or whatever you want to call it.” On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) said that the wall is simply a “metaphor” for border security, which would involve a “barrier where it makes sense.” But Trump doubled down on his campaign-promised concrete wall on Monday, saying the idea of an “all-concrete wall” has “never been abandoned.” An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media. Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2018 President and Mrs. Obama built/has a ten foot Wall around their D.C. mansion/compound. I agree, totally necessary for their safety and security. The U.S. needs the same thing, slightly larger version! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2018 As for funding, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made a point recently about that:

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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After two years of drum-rolling, Donald Trump’s “ultimate deal” for Israelis and Palestinians is about to enter what its architects claim is the pre-launch phase. The US president has said the peace plan drawn up by his team – two former personal lawyers and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner – will be ready to unveil by the end of January. Yet despite the anticipation surrounding Trump’s proposals for resolving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, a more crucial plan for the region is already being implemented on the ground: an attempt to strengthen Israel’s hand while weakening that of the Palestinians. One by one, the US has implemented the key demands of Israel’s hardline rightwing lobby, drastically slashing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, declaring the contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, shuttering Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington, and closing its own consulate that serves the occupied West Bank and Gaza. For Palestinians – and many Israelis – a peace deal is a sideshow. The bigger issue, which does not depend on peace, is the implementation of Israel’s wishes by the most accommodating US administration in its history. Trump has repeatedly said the measures are intended to force Palestinian leaders – who reject him outright as a biased mediator – into a peace effort. Trump has also said Israel will have to “pay a price” for peace, although has not specified what that would be. Palestinian leaders have responded by saying there is no genuine plan for a just solution. “It’s really a lie,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian politician. “Everybody is working on this fictitious concept. [The US] became partners with Israel and they are implementing Israeli policies. All we see are unilateral measures by the US and by Israel … The reality on the ground is now being engineered.” A state department official said a “high priority” has been placed on achieving a comprehensive deal, but it would be “difficult”. While they would not comment on details of the plan, which is still being drafted, a few aspects are becoming clearer. First, unlike previous US-led efforts in which it was up to the Israelis and the Palestinians to decide the details, the Trump version will likely be much more specific and prescriptive. In essence, it will be a series of suggestions that detractors say will be heavily focused on Israeli demands based on the political views of its authors. For example, Jason Greenblatt, who is leading Trump’s team after his promotion to government from chief legal officer at the Trump Organization, has broken US precedent to say Israeli settlement-building in the occupied West Bank – illegal under international law – is not an obstacle to peace. The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who also worked for Trump’s company, has been even more vocal in his support of Israeli settlement construction, and even the annexation of Palestinian territory. Second, the US will only go so far in pushing the two sides to accept the deal, meaning the plan is liable to collapse. “The parties will need to decide if they think the plan works for them and will make their lives better,” Greenblatt has said. “The parties are the only ones who can make these compromises.” Critics say it is increasingly apparent that those drafting the plan might not even be betting on its success to achieve their goals, which are already being enforced on the ground. Trump’s team will know that from Israel’s perspective there is very little appetite for peace compared with the past. An August poll found only 9% of Israelis wanted their government to prioritise reaching a deal with the Palestinians in 2019. Israeli minister dismisses Trump peace plan as 'waste of time' Read more Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is acutely aware of public sentiment as an election approaches, has said he does not see “any urgency” on Trump revealing his peace plan. His former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman was even clearer when asked about a peace deal that could result in Palestinian self-rule: “I don’t care about a Palestinian state,” he said. The justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, said she would tell Trump the plan was “a waste of time”. A European diplomat in Jerusalem told the Guardian on condition of anonymity that it was “distinctly possible that we could get to the end of Trump’s presidency with no [peace] proposals”. With few predicting success, Palestinians are presented with two options: accepting a plan drafted by the least receptive US administration to their cause since peace efforts began, or continuing to face punitive measures. If the plan is rejected out of hand, the status quo – in which Israel entrenches its occupation of the West Bank and continues to enforce a blockade on Gaza – will remain. However, US officials insist that there are genuine peace efforts. The three main architects – Greenblatt, Friedman and Jared Kushner – all come from a business background and their position has been to treat the conflict like a deal. With economic incentives they hope to convince a side that has historically prioritised issues of principle, such as the right of refugees to return to their homes or to call Jerusalem their capital. “There is no reason the Palestinians (in both the West Bank and Gaza) can’t enjoy economic success and integrate into a thriving regional economy – if they let us help,” the trio wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in July. Trump also sees any negotiations as transactional, saying he has to force the Palestinians to reach an agreement by weakening their hand through aid cuts. The president referred to his Jerusalem declaration as a bargaining “chip” taken away from the Palestinians. In a message sent a year ago to other senior officials on cutting funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, Kushner wrote in internal emails obtained by Foreign Policy: “Our goal can’t be to keep things stable and as they are … Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there.” Shortly after Greenblatt was appointed last year, Tania Hary, the executive director at Gisha, an Israeli non-profit that promotes the freedom of movement of Palestinians, said her office started receiving calls from his team asking questions on the economy in Gaza, which has been kept under an Israel blockade for a decade. Greenblatt does not cite the blockade as a reason for the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, but focuses blame on its rulers, Hamas, and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which has blocked funding to the enclave. “My impression at the time was that I was being approached by business-minded people who thought they could solve a problem from a business perspective,” Hary said. “They recognised that there were obstacles to growth that included restrictions on movement and access,” she said, adding that her advice was that Gaza’s problems cannot be solved by keeping it isolated from the West Bank and Israel. But then they stopped calling. “I’m not sure if that [message] carried through.”

polusa

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Legislation and logistics have been fast-tracked to turn last May’s vote into reality Ireland is poised to roll out its first regular abortion services in the coming weeks in the wake of the referendum vote to lift the country’s near-total ban on abortion. Politicians and officials fast-tracked legislation and logistical preparations to turn last year’s landslide vote in favour of liberalisation into reality for women who wish to terminate pregnancies. About nine of the state’s 19 maternity units, plus clinics run by other organisations, have indicated they will be ready to start abortion services in January. Only 162 of Ireland’s 4,000 GPs have signed up to provide the service, but the government says that will suffice. The government plans to establish “exclusion zones” to move any protests away from clinics. The rollout will mark another milestone in the Republic of Ireland’s transformation from a conservative society in thrall to the Roman Catholic church to a liberal, secular country, and will increase the pressure to lift Northern Ireland’s abortion ban, an anomaly in the UK. “The fact it has been turned around so quickly is brilliant,” said Clare Murphy, a spokesperson for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which catered to many of the approximately 3,000 women who travelled from Ireland to Britain last year to obtain abortions. “That number will definitely drop, without a doubt.” The referendum last May delivered a mandate for change: 66.4% of voters chose to repeal the eighth amendment to the constitution, which gave “the unborn” equal rights to pregnant women and made abortion illegal even in cases of rape, incest or severe danger to the mother. Since then, Ireland’s health minister, Simon Harris, has driven a tight timetable, steering legislation through contentious, marathon debates in parliament and negotiating with medical service providers. The Irish president, Michael Higgins, signed the regulation of termination of pregnancy bill into law on 20 December, paving the way for services to open in January. Campaigners have hailed it as an overdue breakthrough for women’s rights and equality. Under the new system, GPs will provide abortions to women up to nine weeks pregnant and hospitals will perform terminations at between nine and 12 weeks. After 12 weeks, abortions will be allowed only in exceptional circumstances. The service will be largely free, with the state paying GPs approximately €400 per patient. As the rollout nears, all sides are apprehensive. Pro-choice groups bristle at a three-day “cooling off” period for women who request abortions, calling it a sop to anti-abortion activists that lacks medical basis. They also worry about uncertainty over those seeking abortions after 12 weeks, estimated in about 17% of cases. “We expect there will be a significant cohort of women who won’t be catered for,” said Murphy. She expected hundreds of such cases to end up in British clinics this year. Pro-life advocates are dismayed, saying the referendum was not a mandate for abortion on demand. Brendan Leahy, the bishop of Limerick, said Ireland was experiencing an “inglorious watermark”. Doctors, nurses, counsellors and administrators worry about bottlenecks and confusion in a health service already creaking from dysfunction and long waiting lists. A 24-hour, seven-day helpline will direct women to local GPs who provide abortions. Concern about teething problems has deterred many GPs from signing up to abortion services. An online consultation by the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) found that 43% were unwilling because of concerns about the rollout, especially “referral pathways” to secondary care involving ultrasound and hospital services. Tony Cox, the ICGP’s medical director, said: “A small but significant group, particularly younger GPs, see the introduction of abortion services as a significant milestone for women’s health services in Ireland. “We believe the majority of members are concerned that the introduction has been rushed, that the referral pathways won’t be in place for a while, but are optimistic that it will settle down and that the media interest will subside, and the 24-hour helpline will work smoothly.”

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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Party faces its greatest challenge as new generation urges change from corruption of the past In a few months time, as winter begins to bite in the southern hemisphere, the African National Congress will face its biggest challenge since it took power in South Africa’s first free elections a quarter of a century ago. Ramaphosa says corruption inquiry shedding light on dark period in South Africa Read more The 25-year milestone will be loudly celebrated. There will be rallies and speeches. The liberation songs that motivated ANC activists during the long, dark decades of its struggle to free South Africa from the racist, repressive apartheid regime will ring out. The memory of Nelson Mandela, Nobel prize laureate, freedom fighter and the country’s secular saint, will be invoked. But none of this will disguise the harsh reality that 2019 could be the year that will be seen by historians as the beginning of the end for the ANC. “Twenty-five years is the time when the clock really starts ticking for liberation movements. The ANC is on the defensive now. It is just trying to stop the losses,” said Ralph Mathekga, a South African commentator and analyst. The general election likely in May or June will be the litmus test for the party. Last December, Cyril Ramaphosa, 66, won a close-run internal party election. Three months later, he ousted Jacob Zuma to take power as president of the country. Zuma was accused of presiding over an immense system of corruption and patronage that drained billions from the exchequer and damaged the reputation of the ANC beyond repair. Ramaphosa served as deputy president under Zuma. Details of alleged graft are surfacing every week as journalists and a judicial inquiry unpick his era. Facebook Twitter Pinterest A 2015 student protest against the then president Jacob Zuma outside the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg. Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images Though Ramaphosa told reporters in November there was “a new confidence, a new hope in the ANC” and insisted “the shine that had been tarnished is coming back”, the former trade union activist turned tycoon turned politician has struggled to overcome the toxic legacy of Zuma’s nine-year rule. The economy is weak, expectations are high and Ramaphosa’s broadly centrist market-oriented policies face strong opposition from within his own party. Entrenched networks of government and ANC officials still loyal to Zuma remain powerful, while international investors, though interested by South Africa’s undoubted potential, are wary. Successive ANC governments have made huge efforts to build homes and supply basic services to millions of people, but they have been unable to meet expectations. Many people still live without electricity or sanitation. Schooling and healthcare are often rudimentary. One recent survey found eight out of 10 nine-year-olds in South Africa are functionally illiterate. Levels of violent crime are among the highest in the world, with poor South Africans suffering most. Ramaphosa’s long stint in office under Zuma, and his failure to enact dramatic reform since taking power, leaves him and the ANC vulnerable to the charge from opposition parties that nothing has changed from the bad days before. South Africa remains a country with enormous resources and great wealth but also vast inequality. Much of the focus in the last year was on the possible redistribution of farmland – largely owned by white people, who constitute fewer than 10% of the population. “The ANC is basically buying time. If you want to continue for another 30 years by fair not foul means you do need structural reform and land is one of those,” said Alex Vines, the head of the Africa programme at the Chatham House thinktank in London. The coming elections could see the ANC share of the vote fall close to 50% for the first time. “The ANC should get a weak majority but this may be the last election it wins,” said Mathekga. However, the party will be helped by the relative weakness of the opposition. Ramaphosa’s relative moderation has squeezed the political space once occupied by the Democratic Alliance, a centre-right, business-friendly party that is the ANC’s main competitor. The belligerent rhetoric and populist policies of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters plays well with its core constituency but makes further expansion difficult. Facebook Twitter Pinterest A mother walks her children to school in the Alexandra township of Johannesburg. Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA Leaders of the EFF have also been hit by damaging allegations that they benefited from the corrupt looting of a bank which held savings of some of the poorest members of society. South Africa, with its particularly traumatic history of racial repression and its high level of industrialisation, has always been something of an exception on the continent. But the country of 55 million people still follows many trends that are evident elsewhere. Last year the strength of a new wave of young politicians and activists challenging ageing leaders across much of Africa became evident. The new generation of politicians are in their mid-30s and can barely remember the cold war or the conflicts that brought many autocrats or ruling parties – including the ANC – to power. Often educated and urban, they and their supporters are at the intersection of seismic demographic, social and economic shifts. More than 10 million eligible voters in South Africa – about a quarter of the electorate – will be under 30 and thus too young to remember the ANC’s role in the struggle against apartheid. A rising proportion live in towns and cities, not the rural zones that are the bedrock of ANC support. “All over … Africa, urban areas are in the forefront of moving away from the established parties, said Vines.

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Interested in Israel? Add Israel as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Israel news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest The leader of Israel's Labor Party has broken up the country's largest opposition bloc, the latest political upheaval ahead of April elections. Avi Gabbay announced on Tuesday that Labor would run independently, without the Hatnua movement of former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The two had made up the Zionist Union bloc, which earned 24 seats in previous elections, finishing second only to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party. But the union has recently been polling in single digits, a historic low for a bloc led by the Labor Party that founded Israel and led it for its first 30 years. The development comes after a pair of nationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers last week left the Jewish Home party to form a new party that would challenge Netanyahu from the right.

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British counterterrorism police are questioning a man accused of stabbing three people at a Manchester railway station on New Year's Eve. Police said Tuesday two people were taken to a hospital for treatment with knife injuries and a British Transport Police officer was stabbed in the shoulder and briefly hospitalized. He has since been released. The incident happened very close to Manchester Arena, where a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert in 2017. A witness has said the man with the knife shouted "Allah" during the incident but officials have not confirmed that. Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said the incident is "not ongoing" and there is "currently no intelligence to suggest that there is any wider threat."

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Sudan's president has ordered an investigation into "recent events" in the country, a reference to two weeks of violent protests against his 29-year rule, the state news agency reported as Omar al-Bashir seeks to placate popular anger over his autocratic rule and economic policies. According to the report late Monday, al-Bashir tasked Justice Minister Mohammed Ahmed Salem with leading the probe committee, but gave no details on what exactly it would investigate. The development follows calls by Western nations, including the United States and Britain, and rights groups for authorities in Sudan to investigate the use of lethal force by security forces against demonstrators. It also follows unconfirmed reports that al-Bashir's political rivals may have engineered an acute shortage of fuel and other basic commodities to whip up anger against the government. Authorities have said that 19 people died in the protests, while Amnesty International said it has "credible reports" that 37 died in the first five days of protests. Human Rights Watch said Monday that independent groups monitoring the situation in Sudan have put the death toll at 40 since the protests erupted on Dec. 19. Al-Bashir on Monday sought to defuse the anger sweeping the country, reassuring the Sudanese of better days ahead and pledging more "transparency, effectiveness and justice in all our national institutions" in an address to the nation marking the anniversary of Sudan's independence 63 years ago. "Our country is going through pressing economic conditions that have hurt a large segment of society," he said. "We appreciate this suffering, feel its impact and we thank our people for their beautiful patience." Al-Bashir said the 2019 budget would maintain state subsidies on many commodities, raise wages, refrain from introducing new taxes and do more for the poorest. He did not elaborate. Sudan's economy has stagnated for most of al-Bashir's rule. He has also failed to unite or keep the peace in the religiously and ethnically diverse nation, losing three quarters of Sudan's oil wealth when the mainly animist and Christian south seceded in 2011 following a referendum. Critics charge that rampant corruption — protesters have been chanting against the "government of thieves" — is eating up a significant part of government funds and engineering shortages of basic items to manipulate prices.

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Image copyright AFP Image caption Jair Bolsonaro will govern Brazil for the next four years A far-right former army captain will be sworn in as Brazil's new president later on Tuesday. Jair Bolsonaro, 63, won the presidential election by a wide margin against Fernando Haddad of the left-wing Workers' Party on 28 October. Mr Bolsonaro was propelled to victory by his campaign promises to curb Brazil's rampant corruption and crime. But he has proven a deeply divisive figure whose racist, homophobic and misogynistic remarks have angered many. Who is he? Despite portraying himself as a political outsider during his campaign, Mr Bolsonaro served seven terms in Brazil's lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, before being elected president. He has been a member of several political parties but is currently in the Social Liberal Party (PSL), which has grown from having a tiny presence in Congress to becoming the party with the second largest number of deputies in the lower house. Before becoming a politician, Mr Bolsonaro served in Brazil's military, where he was a paratrooper and rose to the rank of captain. How close are his ties to the military? Very. During his time as a lawmaker, Mr Bolsonaro represented the interests of the armed forces and since his election he has named seven former military men to key ministries. Image copyright AFP Image caption Mr Bolsonaro has chosen ex-military officers for many key government posts He has also expressed nostalgia for the time when Brazil was under military rule and the hard-line policies enforced during the period in which thousands were jailed and tortured. He has praised that era as a "glorious period" in Brazil's history. Why has his election caused such a stir? Brazil only returned to democracy in 1985 after more than 20 years under military rule and some critics see his election as threat to the country's democracy. Since being elected, Mr Bolsonaro has repeatedly stated that he he is committed to democracy and that he will abide by Brazil's constitution. But previous comments he has made endorsing the use of torture and disparaging women, gay people and Afro-Brazilians have left many Brazilians worried. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Why are same-sex couples in Brazil rushing to get married? The election campaign which brought him to power has left the country deeply divided into those who see him as the man to put Brazil onto the right track after massive corruption scandals rocked the country and those who fear he could lead Brazil into an authoritarian future. What are his key policies? Mr Bolsonaro's key campaign promises were to drive down crime and to stamp out corruption, which has seen scores of top businessmen and high-ranking politicians, including former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, jailed. In order to achieve the former, he wants to loosen laws on gun ownership so that "honest citizens" can carry arms and "protect themselves". Image copyright AFP Image caption Mr Bolsonaro has a strong following among Brazilians who favour relaxing gun ownership laws On Saturday, he tweeted that he would issue a decree to allow citizens who do not have a criminal record to own guns. Days after being elected, he picked Brazil's most famous anti-corruption judge, Sergio Moro, as his minister of justice. Mr Moro, who has been the key force behind the massive Car Wash corruption investigation, accepted despite having said in the past that he would never enter politics. While the move was welcomed by some who see Judge Moro as a relentless fighter against corruption others criticised the judge for "abandoning" his corruption investigation. Why are environmentalists worried? Environmentalists were aghast when Mr Bolsonaro announced that as part of his drive to streamline Brazil's government, he would merge the ministry of agriculture and that of the environment. Image copyright AFP Image caption Ricardo Salles has been chosen as the new environment minister by Mr Bolsonaro Mr Bolsonaro argued that such a move would cut down on the red tape farmers faced but environmentalists feared that it would erode the protection of the Amazon rain forest. Days after his election and in the face of severe criticism by the then-ministers of the environment and agriculture he backtracked on the issue. Just days before the second round of the election, he also revoked a pledge to quit the Paris climate accord, which sets targets for cutting greenhouse gases. The man he has named as his environment minister has since confirmed that Brazil will remain part of the Paris Agreement. What does it mean internationally? Mr Bolsonaro has been very clear about who he considers to be his international allies and those he views as foes. US President Donald Trump is "an example" to him and Mr Bolsonaro has promised to follow the US lead and relocate Brazil's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Image copyright EPA Image caption Mr Bolsonaro visited a synagogue with Benjamin Netanyahu in Rio Following a meeting with Mr Bolsonaro on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that it was only a matter of "when, not if" Brazil would make the move. Mr Bolsonaro has been scathing in his criticism of the left-wing governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela and cancelled invitations to their leaders to his inauguration. He also accused Cuba of holding back some of the salaries paid to Cuban doctors working in Brazil, prompting Cuba to pull out their doctors in retaliation. But his harshest words have been for those "reds" he accuses of corruption within Brazil. Speaking to his supporters ahead of the second round, he said he would "purge" the country of such criminal elements and they would face either jail or leaving Brazil altogether.

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Good Tuesday morning and Happy New Year. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ • Senator Elizabeth Warren, a sharp critic of big banks and unregulated capitalism, is running for president in 2020. Ms. Warren said she was forming a presidential exploratory committee, which allows her to raise money and hire staff before a formal kickoff. • Ms. Warren’s announcement marks the beginning of a new year and new campaign that will feature an unusually large number of Democrats seeking the presidency. The question is: Who, if anyone, matches the political moment? • With the next presidential election almost two years away, Ms. Warren and other candidates may seem to be starting their campaigns early. But they’re actually right on schedule.

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Of all Britain’s predatory birds, grey herons are among the most successful. They have been the subject of the second longest-running survey for any species, with detailed records going back almost a century. In 1928 there were 4,000 pairs in England and Wales, while in 2015 the figure for all Britain was 11,124. Herons have more than doubled their population partly as a result of remarkable versatility. Fish are the obvious dietary staple but mammals – rats, voles and moles included – are more than routine, as are snakes, lizards, frogs and birds’ eggs. Adult birds have been seen to eat anything from robins and starlings to wood pigeons and mallards. There was correspondence in last January’s edition of Birdwatch describing a heron at Rainham Marshes, in Essex, attacking and killing a member of its own species. The same letter referred to them recently killing and trying to devour little grebes and coots. I’ve seen a good cross-section of this adaptability but never, until this day, had I witnessed the following technique. At Rockland Staithe there are a couple of tall metal posts at least 2m above the high-tide waterline. A heron is a habitual occupant of the tiny village quay, where the posts serve as a strategic perch to watch for possible titbits from local fishermen. I noticed this individual heron hop and raise its wings, with knees bent low to the post, as if it felt itself threatened. Instead of flying off, however, it angled its dagger-bill at the water below the perch and then, as an oarsman might shove off a boat, it pressed forward and down, hitting the water like a huge kingfisher. There was a split second when it sat at the surface riding its own brief swell. Then the heron, with a nice-sized roach in its beak, rose once more. The long hackles at its neck swayed with the force of the action. Diamond drops cascaded everywhere from the black-fringed cloak of its wings, which now rose and fell like bellows and, with long legs trailing way below, the heron regained its iron post to feed. I timed it all at under 15 seconds.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE..a new beginning .. more responsibility.. with UR support I will be contesting in the coming parliament elections as an INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE. Details of the constituency soon. Ab ki baar Janatha ki SARKAR #citizensvoice #justasking in parliament too..

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Russian rescuers on Tuesday pulled an infant boy alive from the rubble of an apartment building, some 35 hours after a collapse that killed at least seven people and left dozens missing. They found the baby after hearing cries amid the debris. A section of the 10-story building in the city of Magnitogorsk collapsed on Monday following an explosion believed to have been triggered by a natural gas leak. The child, who officials initially said was a girl, was seriously injured and his recovery prospects were unclear. The boy's mother survived the collapse and went to a local hospital to identify him, state news agency Tass reported, citing the regional emergencies ministry. The child will be evacuated to Moscow by airplane for further treatment, Tass said. The regional emergency ministry said earlier Tuesday that 37 residents of the building had not been accounted for. Hopes of finding survivors were dimmed by the harsh cold: Temperatures overnight were around minus 18 Celsius (0 Fahrenheit). "The child was saved because it was in a crib and wrapped warmly," regional governor Boris Dubrovsky was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. Rescue crews had temporarily halted their search while workers tried to remove or stabilize sections of the building in danger of collapse. Five people were hospitalized with injuries from the collapse in the city about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) southeast of Moscow, the emergency ministry said. In a separate holiday period disaster, seven people including a couple and their three children died in a house fire in in the town of Orsk, about 1500 kilometers (900 miles) southeast of Moscow, the Interfax news agency said. The fire early Tuesday is believed to have been caused by an electrical short-circuit, the report said. ——— This story has been corrected to give gender of the baby as male following new information from officials.

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Afghan special forces launched a new offensive against the Islamic State group in eastern Nangarhar province, killing 27 militants, officials said Tuesday. Meanwhile, Taliban attacks in northern Afghanistan killed 15 members of the country's security forces. According to provincial council member Ajmal Omar, the special forces, backed by helicopter gunships, targeted IS in Achin district of Nangarhar on Monday. The province has been an IS stronghold and the site where the militant group's regional branch first emerged a few years ago. The militants' media arm, the Aamaq news agency, claimed IS repulsed a joint Afghan-U.S. operation in the area. Omar, who could not confirm whether U.S. troops took part in the operation, said two local IS leaders, Sediq Yar and Syed Omar, were among those killed. The remoteness of the area makes it impossible to independently investigate conflicting reports. In the north, the Taliban launched two blistering attacks on police outposts in Sar-e-Pul province on Monday night, killing 15 policemen and wounding 21, the latest in near-daily assaults by the insurgents against Afghanistan's beleaguered security forces. Fierce gunbattles raged for several hours in Sayyad district and outside Sar-e-Pul, the provincial capital. In the attack on the outskirts of the city, heavy artillery fire by Afghan forces trying to repel the Taliban sent local residents fleeing for safety, said provincial council chief Mohammad Noor Rahmani. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousof Ahmadi claimed responsibility for both attacks in Sar-e-Pul province. The Taliban have been carrying out near-daily attacks targeting Afghan forces despite stepped-up efforts by the United States to find a negotiated end to the country's 17-year war. The size and strength of the IS affiliate in Afghanistan, which emerged in 2013, is estimated at anywhere between several hundred and several thousand fighters. The group comprises mostly of disgruntled Taliban fighters and Uzbek militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, as well as Pakistani militants who were driven out of Pakistan's tribal region along the border with Afghanistan. The relentless violence and deteriorating security battering Afghanistan comes as President Donald Trump is expected to order the withdrawal in the summer of 7,000 U.S. soldiers. There are currently about 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, mostly carrying out training and assisting the Afghan forces who took over the defense of their country in 2014. There are also 7,100 soldiers from other NATO and partnering countries still stationed in Afghanistan. ___ Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed to this report.

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What does it mean to be human? That question sits at the core of human rights. To be human has specific implications: human self-awareness and the actions taken to uphold human dignity – these are what gives the concept of humanity a special meaning. Human self-awareness and human actions determine the interplay between individual thought and language and the wider society. It is our actions as humans that deliver economic security, the right to education, the right to free association and free expression; and which create the conditions for protecting expression and encouraging bold thinking. When we abandon efforts to uphold human dignity, we forfeit the essential meaning of being human, and when we waver in our commitment to the idea of human rights, we abandon our moral principles. What follows is duplicity and folly, corruption and tyranny, and the endless stream of humanitarian crises that we see in the world today. More than two centuries have passed since the concept of human rights was first developed. During that time humanity has gone through various stages of history and the world has seen enormous changes. In Europe, what was once a collection of colonialist, autocratic states has transformed into a democratic society with a capitalist orientation, establishing a mechanism that protects individual rights. Other societies are also seeing structural changes, and the concept of human rights is facing grave challenges. 'The last time I saw Granny Pu': 85-year-old mother of Chinese dissident seized by police Read more In part these challenges stem from the disparate demands of countries in different stages of development, with contrasting economic situations and competing interests. But challenges also come from divergent conceptions and understandings of human rights, human dignity, morality and responsibility, and from different interpretations and applications of the core principles of human rights. In the contemporary world, as our grasp of the fundamental values and principles of human rights and humanitarianism weakens, we risk losing our rights, responsibilities and our power to uphold human dignity. History shows that a moral failure is always accompanied by painful realities, visible everywhere. The global refugee crisis is worsening daily, and 70 million refugees have been forced to leave their homes by war and poverty. Our living environment is constantly being degraded, and the ecological balance is ever more fragile. Armed conflicts persist and potential political crises lurk; regional instabilities grow more acute; autocratic regimes brutally impose their will, while democratic governance is in decline. Unreasoning and unrestrained expansion under a nationalist, capitalist order is exacerbating the global gap between rich and poor. Our views of the world have become more divided and more conflicted than ever. Play Video 1:30 Aung San Suu Kyi holds 'key' to freeing Reuters journalists, says Amal Clooney – video Individuals in many countries and regions lack the opportunity to receive an education, to access information or communicate freely. They have no chance to exercise their imagination and creativity or fulfil their ideals; no chance to enjoy freedom of belief and freedom of association. Such rights and freedoms pose a fatal threat to autocracy and authoritarianism. This is why, in so many places, lawyers have been imprisoned, journalists have been disappeared and murdered, why censorship has become so pervasive, why religious and non-governmental organisations have been ruthlessly suppressed. Today, dictatorships and corrupt regimes continue to benefit from reckless arms sales, and enjoy the quiet support of capitalist nations. Religious divisions, ethnic contradictions and regional disputes all feed into primitive power plays. Their logic is simple: to weaken individual freedoms and strengthen the controls imposed by governments and dominant elites. The end result is that individuals are deprived of the right to live, denied freedom from fear, and freedom of expression, or denied the rights to maintain their living environment and develop. The concept of human rights needs to be revised. Discussions of human rights used to focus on the one-dimensional relationship between the state’s rights and individual rights, but now human rights involve a variety of relationships. Today, whether demands are framed in terms of the rights of the individual or the goals pursued by political entities and interest groups, none of these agendas exists in isolation. Historically, the conditions governing human existence have never been more globally interdependent. The right of children to grow up and be educated, the right of women to receive protection, the right to conserve nature, the right to survival of other lives intimately connected with the survival of the human race – all these have now become major elements in the concept of human rights. As science and technology develop, authoritarian states invade privacy and limit personal freedom in the name of counter-terrorism and maintaining stability, intensifying psychological manipulation at all levels. Through control of the internet and command of facial recognition technology, authoritarian states tighten their grip on people’s thoughts and actions, threatening and even eliminating freedoms and political rights. Similar kinds of controls are being imposed to varying degrees within the global context. From this we can see that under these new conditions human rights have not gained a common understanding, and if discussion of human rights becomes narrow and shortsighted, it is bound to become nothing more than outdated, empty talk. Greek police accused of beating migrants trying to enter from Turkey Read more Today, Europe, the US, Russia, China and other governments manufacture, possess and sell arms. Pontificating about human rights is simply self-deluding if we fail to curb the dangerous practices that make armed conflict all the more likely. Likewise, if no limits are placed on capitalist global expansion and the pervasive penetration of capital power, if there is no effort to curb the sustained assault by authoritarian governments on natural human impulses, a discussion of human rights is just idle chatter. Such a blatant abdication of responsibility can lead to no good outcome. Human rights are shared values. Human rights are our common possession. When abuses are committed against anyone in any society, the dignity of humanity as a whole is compromised. By the same token, it is only when the rights of any individual and rights of the people of any region receive our care and protection that humanity can achieve a shared redemption. Such is the principle of human rights, in all its stark simplicity. But a shared understanding of that truth still eludes us. Why so? Could it be that we are too selfish, too benighted, too lacking in courage? Or, perhaps, we are insincere, we don’t really love life enough: we con ourselves into imagining we can get away without discharging our obligation to institute fairness and justice, we fool ourselves into thinking that chaos is acceptable, we entertain the idea that the world may well collapse in ruin, all hopes and dreams shattered. If we truly believe in values that we can all identify with and aspire to – a recognition of truth, an understanding of science, an appreciation of the self, a respect for life and a faith in society – then we need to eliminate obstacles to understanding, uphold the fundamental definition of humanity, affirm the shared value of human lives and other lives, and acknowledge the symbiotic interdependency of human beings and the environment. A belief in ourselves and a belief in others, a trust in humanitarianism’s power to do good, and an earnest recognition of the value of life – these form the foundation for all human values and all human efforts. • Ai Weiwei is a leading contemporary artist, activist and advocate of political reform in China

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Companies vowing to narrow the gap will be under pressure to act this year, say experts It was billed as the biggest legislative game-changer for working women since the Equal Pay Act made it illegal to pay people of different sexes differently for the same job in 1970. And for once, the hype may not have been overstated. Groundbreaking legislation that forced companies to reveal their gender pay gaps in 2018 for the first time has had an immediate and wide-ranging effect, but companies are likely to come under increased pressure to narrow the gap in 2019, according to data and experts. Figures from the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) employment trends survey show 93% of businesses are taking action to close the gender pay gap and increase diversity in their workforces, compared with 62% who were asked a similar question in 2017. Companies increasingly appear to recognise the business case for building a diverse workforce, with 60% saying it helps attract and retain staff, while half said it increased skills in the workforce. Global pay gap will take 202 years to close, says World Economic Forum Read more Savvy job candidates are putting more pressure on companies to show they are pushing diversity and gender equality – with two-thirds of women taking a company’s gender pay gap into consideration, according to research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. But businesses are also facing a real skillset problem, said Matthew Percival, the head of employment at the CBI. “There is a longer-term problem related to demographics, where businesses need to work hard to broaden their appeal or it will be increasingly difficult to attract the best talent from a diverse workforce,” he said. Percival added that the CBI was holding diversity conferences several times a year, which were increasingly oversubscribed. “I think businesses are sincere; they want to understand how to do things differently,” he said. He expected more companies to talk about the work they were doing to reduce the gender pay gap in 2019, but had a warning: “In year one or year two you might be able to talk about what you are doing but by year three and four you will need to see those metrics moving.” The report, which had 250 respondents employing a total of 1 million people, found half of businesses were putting a greater emphasis on gender diversity at all levels of the company, but only a third were placing a greater focus on gender diversity in their leadership. Last year, research showed there were more people called David or Steve leading FTSE 100 companies than there were women or people from ethnic minorities. There were five minority ethnic and seven female chief executives of FTSE 100 companies. Nine bosses were named David and four were called Steve. In April, the requirements revealed almost eight in 10 companies and public sector bodies paid men more than women. The data showed women were being paid a median hourly rate that, on average, was 9.7% less than that of their male colleagues. The gender pay gap expert Helene Reardon-Bond, a former head of gender and equality at the government equalities office (GEO), agreed that executives were coming under increasing pressure both from employees and competitors to demonstrate they were closing their gender pay gaps. Figures due to be published by April 2019 are likely to be closely scrutinised for shifts in either direction. “Business leaders are competitive – they don’t want the reputational risk of not publishing, and not being seen to improve,” she said. “It’s been amazing to see gender pay reporting become one of the biggest business stories of the year. We were helped by the #MeToo campaign, and the Harvey Weinstein scandal helped throw petrol on the fire – but we now have people speaking about eliminating the gender pay gap as a business imperative. That is pretty seismic.” About 1,500 large British companies broke the law by failing to report their gender pay gap in time, but 10,000 employers – 100% of those within the scope of the new law – reported within 10 weeks of the deadline. A study from the Institute for Public Policy Research found 81% of large employers had considered or taken steps to close the gender pay gap as a result of the regulations. It also found that despite initial reservations, four out of five employers were supportive of the gender pay gap reporting rules. Following the deadline, the GEO published actions that outlined evidence-based suggestions to companies wanting to close their gender pay gaps, including having multiple women in shortlists for recruitment and promotions. Joe Dromey, an IPPR senior research fellow, warned that the increased transparency achieved by the reporting rules alone would not tackle pay gaps – government and employers must address the structural reasons behind pay inequalities. Can software bring women's pay up to men's? This tech entrepreneur thinks so Read more “There are a lot of companies who are just complying with the legislation, but many more are looking at what they can do about the issue,” said Dromey, who added that about one in three companies provided an “additional narrative” to their figures. Many of these were at pains to stress that the company did not have an equal pay problem, and that the reason for the gender pay gap lay in the fact that top earners were dominated by men, and the lowest earners were women. “Just these slightly formulaic statements about not having an equal pay problem, those will wear thin if you have a year-on-year significant gender pay gap which is not narrowing,” Dromey said. One challenge facing employers is the fact that some measures designed to lower the gender pay gap in the long term could increase the gap in the short term – such as hiring more young women. According to the CBI, 24% report they are placing a greater focus on improving gender diversity in entry-level recruitment. “The expectation at a lot of companies and in the economy as a whole is that you need to see progress year on year,” said Dromey. “The reasons behind the gender pay gap are hard to shift, so there will be a challenge of managing expectations. But the publicity will hopefully push more employers to think what steps they can take.”

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

The CEO sets himself a personal challenge every new year. But after a bruising 12 months, what should he do next? When Mark Zuckerberg began his annual “personal challenges” in 2009, he set the bar pretty low: he dressed like an adult every day for a year. Subsequent challenges were squarely in the realm of achievable New Year’s resolutions, from reading a book every two weeks and running a mile a day to starting to learn Mandarin and sending thank you notes. But as Zuckerberg has transitioned his public image from the kid cosplaying as a business executive to the no-longer-quite-a-kid cosplaying as a statesman, his personal challenges have become something of a bellwether for how he is thinking about Facebook’s future. In 2016, when it seemed that Facebook’s challenges were still largely technological, he set out to build his own smart home system. In 2017, when political polarization was still being chalked up to filter bubbles, he embarked on a road trip around the US. And in 2018, when fake news and foreign interference were dominating headlines, he promised to buckle down and “focus on fixing” all of the various “issues” that had left the one-time prodigy looking more and more like a pariah. It's complicated: Facebook's terrible 2018 Read more Twelve months later, it seems that for the first time, Zuckerberg has failed to meet his goal. Not only has he not fixed Facebook, the list of problems with the social network has grown so long that it’s getting harder to find people who think the company is even fixable. So this year, we asked a number of writers, technologists, politicians, activists and comedians to answer two questions: What do you predict Mark Zuckerberg’s 2019 personal challenge will be? What do you think Mark Zuckerberg’s 2019 personal challenge should be? Here’s what they said … Ellen Pao, CEO and co-founder of Project Include Will be: Spend time with people he wants to connect with, perhaps employees or maybe his family. Should be: Hire more people of color at the executive level, reporting directly to him. Bring more people of color, especially women of color, on to the Facebook board … Learn about the history of harassment on the internet over the past decade and a half from people targeted, from Pizzagate to Gamergate – and pay them for their time. Meet with the people in Myanmar and in India who have been victims of harassment from Facebook and WhatsApp. Tom Watson, deputy leader of the Labour party Will be: Continue to evade parliamentary scrutiny and personal responsibility for Facebook’s problems. Should be: Have a productive life having resigned from the company he founded to leave a new leadership team to clean up his mess. Facebook Twitter Pinterest A protest ahead of Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance before Congress in April. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP Anand Giridharadas, author of Winner Takes All Will be: Some trivial act of personal development that gives him an aura of moral growth without actually reforming the troubled mind and soul of his that helped put a demagogue in charge of America. Should be: Resigning from Facebook – and bringing Sheryl Sandberg with him, so she can spend all her time convincing women that patriarchy is really just a posture problem. Then he should reorient his charitable foundation. It should stop trying to end all disease and refocus on healing the plague that Facebook has become. It should stop trying to transform education and refocus on educating billionaire techies with huge power but limited moral imaginations. Visit 50 people who were personally affected by bullying, hate speech and ethnic cleansing Jessica Powell, author and former Google executive Will be: A further commitment this year to improving the platform. Should be: Mark would have an easier time tackling Facebook’s problems if he could better understand them on a human level – not as data points. Just as he set off two years ago to visit all 50 states, he should set out to visit 50 people who were personally affected by all the bullying, hate speech, ethnic cleansing and live-streamed suicides that have occurred on his platform. Ro Khanna, congressman from Silicon Valley Will be: Being more willing to admit error. Should be: Building social media tools that will strengthen democracy. Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Anti-Social Media Will be: Trying to learn yet another language in 2019. If he’s self-aware in any way he will choose to master Burmese so he can better understand the genocide his platforms amplify. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rohingya refugees perform prayers on the anniversary of a military crackdown that prompted a mass exodus of people from Myanmar. Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images Should be: Understanding his own company. I could send him a substantial reading list of scholarship that assesses the influence of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in the world. Zuckerberg could take a three-month sabbatical to digest all that work. Better than that, Zuckerberg could take a two-year sabbatical from Facebook, enroll at the University of Virginia, and finish his bachelor’s degree under my direction. That would serve him – and his company and all its users – better than just about anything else he could do. Spend the year as an outsourced contractor who has to look at violent images Matt Klinman, comedian Will be: To finally leave Facebook: “It’s just not fun here any more, at first Facebook was about hanging out with my friends and sharing cool stuff. But now, most of my friends have quit and the ones that haven’t are, no offense, just the most narcissistic crazy ones addicted to the fake positive reinforcement they get. I think about all the people in my life who I actually respect and I’m like ‘I never see those people at Facebook any more.” Should be: Spend the entire next year as one of those poor outsourced contractors who has to sit there for 10 hours a day looking at all the violent and pedophilic images people report. He should feel the trauma of being on the ground level of his giant editor-less libertarian media dystopia. Jillian York, free expression director at Electronic Frontier Foundation Will be: Something vague that won’t require any real accountability, like “do better”. Should be: Speaking for myself? Find a new job. Dennys Antonialli, executive director of InternetLab, Brazil Should be: Take local contexts into account when shaping global policies to regulate content. This will require a more meaningful engagement with civil society around the world: understanding their issues and listening to their concerns is the only way to make Facebook a safer and better place. Zuckerberg should listen to an activist every day. Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Resign from Facebook – and bring Sheryl Sandberg with him.’ Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP Rachel Coldicutt, CEO of doteveryone Will be: Working out how artificial intelligence can safeguard democracy. Should be: Breaking up Facebook into at least three smaller companies, while he steps away from the computer and focuses on learning something more low risk for the rest of humanity, like falconry maybe, or macramé. Leslie Miley, former CTO of Obama Foundation Will be: Work more closely with news organizations and public policy orgs to better understand the reach, scope and impact of Facebook’s machinations. Should be: Resign and find a pursuit that will teach him humility and help him find his moral compass. We live in the worst of times - but amid the darkness good things happened in 2018 | Brigid Delaney Read more Daphne Keller, director at Stanford Center for Internet and Society Will be: Something humble, modest, and quantifiable – like maybe “spend a day in the shoes of a frontline employee in every major team at Facebook”. Should be: Commit to building better tools to empower users. There is no top-down fix Facebook could provide that would make all 2.2 billion-ish of us happy, so it’s time to put more meaningful choices – especially about content and privacy – in our hands. Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Commit to building better tools to empower users.’ Photograph: UPI/Barcroft Images Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change Should be: Aggressively addressing the systemic problems in his company … He desperately needs to begin implementing systemic solutions, in a way that is transparent, rebuilds the public trust and provides a safer platform for all people. Nato Green, comedian Will be: Pretending he has even a passing interest in how other people might feel. Should be: Working in retail. Waiting tables at the Olive Garden – a place with rules about flare and scripted upselling. Dia Kayyali, program manager at Witness Will be: Some other, similarly broad, challenge that relates to making Facebook a force for good in the world. Should be: Take personal responsibility for turning Facebook around as a company. That means publicly committing to creating an ethical and principled company that respects civil society, and ensuring that at every level Facebook makes decisions based on human rights instead of market forces. It means personally committing to a Facebook that doesn’t accidentally make decisions that aid violent regimes, white supremacists and other bad actors. Above all, it means simply being honest about Facebook’s largely detrimental role in global society. That would be the biggest challenge of all. Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

With Democrats now in the majority in the House, five committee chairs will wield considerable power to investigate the president The midterm elections brought an end to a period of one-party rule in Washington. In January, Donald Trump will face a newly empowered House Democratic majority eager to take on his administration. The incoming Democratic committee chairs have vowed rigorous oversight of Trump, his family and his administration. Armed with committee gavels, they will have the power and resources to pursue investigations, issue subpoenas and compel testimony. Trump in response has threatened to adopt a “warlike” posture, signaling a tumultuous end to an already-volatile first term. Here are the men and women most likely to torment the president. Elijah Cummings Incoming chair of the House committee on oversight and government reform As the ranking Democrat on the committee, Cummings has sat through his share of Republican-led investigations into the Obama administration. Now the outspoken 67-year-old will wield one of the most powerful gavels in Washington. The son of two former sharecroppers who moved from the south, Cummings was born and raised in Baltimore, a city he now represents in Congress. He practiced law and served for 14 years in the Maryland house of delegates before being elected to Congress in 1996. In January, Cummings will become one of the Democrats’ chief investigators into the Trump administration. He describes his approach as having “two tracks”. One track will scrutinize the executive branch, including whether Trump has profited from the presidency; a decision to add a citizenship question to the US census; and hush payments made to women with whom Trump allegedly had affairs. A second track will focus on reforms such as overhauling the US postal service and lowering prescription drug prices. Cummings has been wary of calls to impeach Trump. Rather than issuing subpoenas “like somebody’s handing out candy on Halloween”, the Democrat says he prefers a more judicious approach. “I’m not looking for retribution,” Cummings told ABC News. “Life is too short.” Adam Schiff Incoming chair of the House permanent select committee on intelligence Schiff is one of Trump’s most combative political opponents. Mocked by the president as “Liddle Adam Schiff” – a barb that was recently modified to “Little Adam Schitt” – the California Democrat was at the center of the House’s deeply partisan investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Schiff began his career as a prosecutor with the Los Angeles division of the US attorney’s office in 1987. He gained prominence by prosecuting a case against the first FBI agent to be indicted for espionage against the United States. (The agent was convicted of passing classified information to the Soviet Union for money.) He was elected to Congress in 2000 after serving in the California state senate. Schiff, 58, is a leading attack dog on the Russia investigation and obstruction of justice. The Democrat has said he will examine whether Russia has financial leverage over the president through its investments in Trump’s business empire, something Trump says would “cross a red line”. Schiff recently said: “If the president’s business is trying to curry favor with the Kremlin, we can’t ignore that.” The congressman has also signaled that he will seek more information about whether Trump sought to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the president’s dealings with Moscow when he fired its director James Comey. He also hasn’t ruled out calling Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, to testify in a public hearing. Jerrold Nadler Incoming chair of the House judiciary committee The New York Democrat, universally known as “Jerry”, will chair the House judiciary committee, which has jurisdiction over key policy areas but will be watched closely for its role in any impeachment proceedings. Nadler’s political career began in 1977 as a New York assemblyman while he was still attending Fordham Law School. He was elected to Congress in 1992, and represents Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Wall Street and parts of Brooklyn. Long before Trump came to Washington, he and Nadler sparred over a real estate venture proposed by Trump that Nadler forcefully opposed. In his book The America We Deserve, Trump later described Nadler as “one of the most egregious hacks in contemporary politics”. Known as a steady hand, Nadler had been careful about broaching the topic of impeachment, dismissing such discussions as “premature”. However, in December Nadler said court filings stating that Trump directed Cohen to pay hush money “would be impeachable offenses”. Nadler, 71, has outlined an expansive list of subjects his committee will scrutinize, including Russian interference in the 2016 election; the policy on separating immigrant families at the southern border; the justice department’s failure to defend the Affordable Care Act; the allegations of sexual misconduct and perjury by the supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh; a rise in antisemitic and hate crime incidents since Trump’s election, and the appointment of acting US attorney general Matthew Whitaker after the forced resignation of Jeff Sessions. Maxine Waters Incoming chair of the House financial services committee Waters, or “Auntie Maxine” as she is affectionately known by her supporters in the anti-Trump “resistance” movement, is a frequent target of the president. Insulted by Trump as “crazy” and an “extraordinarily low IQ person”, the 80-year-old Democrat from California has earned her hard-charging reputation by fighting fire with fire. She has called Trump an “immoral, indecent, & inhumane thug” who “loves Putin” and “genuflects for Kim Jong-un”. The verbal volleys may only get worse as she assumes the top spot on the House financial services committee next year. Waters has consistently demanded information about Trump’s private bank dealings and possible connections to Russia. As chairwoman, she will have the power to demand answers from Trump’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank. She could also increase scrutiny on the nation’s biggest banks and Wall Street. Waters has called for more regulation of banks and could use her power to slow efforts by the Trump administration to roll back regulations on the financial institutions. Waters was one of the first Democrats in Washington to call for the president’s impeachment. She will be the first woman to chair the financial services committee. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP Richard Neal Incoming chair of the House ways and means committee As chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee, the long-serving Massachusetts Democrat is preparing to lead the fight for the release of Trump’s tax returns. Neal told the Washington Post that he will start by requesting Trump voluntarily release his tax returns. In the likely event Trump does not acquiesce, Neal, 69, says he will file a legal request with the treasury department to release the returns to a select group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Neal expects the effort will ultimately end up in federal court. Neal will also use his perch to defend social security, Medicare and Medicaid, federal programs that have personal resonance with him. His parents died when he was young, and Neal and his sisters relied on social security survivor benefit checks. He was elected to Congress in 1988 after serving as a city councilor and mayor of Springfield. He became the ranking Democrat on the committee in 2016. An outspoken opponent of the Republican tax overhaul, Neal has said he also plans to convene hearings on tax policy as well as healthcare and trade.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

One teenager was accidentally shot, and another committed suicide in related tragedies hours before ringing in the new year in Georgia. A group of teens had gathered at a "makeshift shed" in Lawrenceville, an upscale suburb of Atlanta, on Monday afternoon when one of them pulled out a handgun and accidentally shot one of the others, according to the Gwinnett County Police Department. Two of the four teens ran, but police believe the boy who fired the original shot stayed in the shed and called 911. Responding officers found one teen dead inside the shed and then "heard a single gunshot while attempting to locate the involved parties from the initial 911 call." WSB "Officers located a male with what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound a short distance from the makeshift shed," a statement from Gwinnett police said. Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB reported the teens were between 16 and 18 years old. "You know, it's New Year's Eve and to have this happen so close to home, it's just really devastating," a neighbor told WSB. "Nothing like this ever [happened] in this neighborhood." Authorities said the two teens' identities were not being released pending notification of family.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

After partly shutting down the government over a lack of funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, President Donald Trump has been tweeting extensively over the holiday season in defense of the controversial structure. In one such tweet, Trump suggested that former President Barack Obama had erected a 10-foot wall around his Washington home for “safety and security.” The U.S., Trump said, “needs the same thing” — only “slightly larger.” President and Mrs. Obama built/has a ten foot Wall around their D.C. mansion/compound. I agree, totally necessary for their safety and security. The U.S. needs the same thing, slightly larger version! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2018 Neighbors of the Obamas have since refuted Trump’s claim. One neighbor, described as a longtime resident of the Kalorama neighborhood where the former first couple now lives, told The Washington Post on Monday that Trump “has a very active imagination.” “There’s a fence that goes along the front of the house, but it’s the same as the other neighbors have,” the neighbor said. “It’s tastefully done.” According to the Post’s Fact Checker, the Obamas’ home ― described as a nine-bedroom mansion and not a “compound” contrary to Trump’s description — has additional security fencing in the front and back, as well as a guard booth. There is “not a ten-foot wall around the house,” however, and the front steps of the home remain open to the sidewalk. The home is “100 percent visible from the street,” a second neighbor told the paper. In a Sunday tweet, Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the Parkland school shooting, criticized Trump’s tweet for possibly putting the Obamas “at risk.” Foreign policy analyst and journalist Rula Jabreal echoed this sentiment, saying the president’s remarks could potentially endanger the Obamas and their Secret Service team.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Gambling revenue in Macau rose 14 percent in 2018, the second consecutive year of gain as demand to wager in the Chinese territory continued to rebound from a prolonged slump. December was also the 29th straight month where revenue in China’s only legal gambling hub rose versus the same month a year prior, according to data released on Tuesday by the Gaming Inspection and Coordination bureau. Revenue rose 16.6 percent to 26.47 billion patacas ($3.3 billion) versus the 10-15 percent estimates of analysts polled by Reuters. Revenue for the full year was 302.85 billion patacas ($37.6 billion). Revenue has stabilized since a period of decline, which coincided with a central government campaign against conspicuous spending among public officials. However, a Sino-U.S. trade war and slowing Chinese economy will likely weigh on sentiment in the high-roller VIP segment, keeping any further revenue gains checked, analysts said. Nevertheless, casino executives are bullish on the potential benefits from the opening last year of the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge and tunnel, linking Macau to the financial center of Hong Kong and mainland China’s Pearl River Delta. Authorities also hope the bridge will boost the development of Macau’s convention and exhibition business and increase overnight visitation numbers, both of which help drive non-gaming revenue in the gambling-dependent territory. The special administrative region has been encouraging casino operators to diversify to help broaden its economic base. At present, tax from casinos accounts for over 80 percent of the Macau government’s total revenue.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

FILE PHOTO: Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn attends the annual Royal Ploughing Ceremony in central Bangkok, Thailand, May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s king will be officially crowned in coronation ceremonies on May 4-6, the royal palace said on Tuesday. King Maha Vajiralongkorn, 66, has been serving as monarch since shortly after his father died in 2016 after a 70-year reign. “His Majesty deems it fit to hold the coronation ceremony per royal traditions for the good fortune of the nation and the kingdom, to be enjoyed by the hopeful people,” a palace statement said. Vajiralongkorn officially became Thailand’s king in December 2016 after an invitation by parliament following the death of his revered father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, on Oct. 13, 2016. His official coronation has been delayed until after a year-long mourning period for Bhumibol, who was cremated in October 2017 in a grand royal funeral in Bangkok. King Bhumibol was revered by Thais during his seven decades on the throne and the deep relationship between the monarchy and the military has helped facilitate a smooth royal transition following his death. Since then, Vajiralongkorn has overseen sweeping changes to royal affairs, including the running of palace finances which were formerly managed by the government. Thailand is due to hold elections on Feb. 24, and the current election timeline means the coronation will likely take place before a new government is formed. The elections are meant to restore democracy after a 2014 military coup ousted an elected prime minister, though changes to the constitution in the interim ensure the military will retain a great deal of control.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. / Source: Associated Press LAUREL, Md. — The NASA spacecraft that yielded the first close-up views of Pluto opened the new year at an even more distant world, a billion miles beyond. Flight controllers said everything looked good for New Horizons' flyby of the tiny, icy object at 12:33 a.m. Tuesday. Confirmation was not expected for hours, though, given the vast distance. The mysterious, ancient target nicknamed Ultima Thule is 4 billion miles from Earth. Scientists wanted New Horizons observing Ultima Thule during the encounter, not phoning home. So they had to wait until late morning before learning whether the spacecraft survived. With New Horizons on autopilot, Mission Control was empty at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Instead, hundreds of team members and their guests gathered nearby on campus for back-to-back countdowns. The crowd ushered in 2019 at midnight, then cheered, blew party horns and jubilantly waved small U.S. flags again 33 minutes later, the appointed time for New Horizons' closest approach to Ultima Thule. A few black-and-white pictures of Ultima Thule might be available following Tuesday's official confirmation, but the highly anticipated close-ups won't be ready until Wednesday or Thursday, in color, it is hoped. "We set a record. Never before has a spacecraft explored anything so far away," said the project's lead scientist who led the countdown to the close encounter, Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute. "Think of it. We're a billion miles farther than Pluto." Stern called it an auspicious beginning to 2019, which will mark the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's footsteps on the moon in July 1969. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its first detection of Ultima Thule, an icy object in the Kuiper Belt, on Aug. 16, 2018. NASA / JHUAPL/SwRI "Ultima Thule is 17,000 times as far away as the 'giant leap' of Apollo's lunar missions," Stern noted in an opinion piece in The New York Times. New Horizons, which is the size of a baby grand piano and part of an $800 million mission, was expected to hurtle to within 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of Ultima Thule, considerably closer than the Pluto encounter of 2015. Its seven science instruments were to continue collecting data for four hours after the flyby. Then the spacecraft was to turn briefly toward Earth to transmit word of its success. It takes over six hours for radio signals to reach Earth from that far away. Scientists believe there should be no rings or moons around Ultima Thule that might endanger New Horizons. Traveling at 31,500 mph (50,700 kph), the spacecraft could easily be knocked out by a rice-size particle. It's a tougher encounter than at Pluto because of the distance and the considerable unknowns, and because the spacecraft is older now. "I can't promise you success. We are straining the capabilities of this spacecraft," Stern said at a news conference Monday. "By tomorrow, we'll know how we did. So stay tuned. There are no second chances for New Horizons." The risk added to the excitement. Queen guitarist Brian May, who also happens to be an astrophysicist, joined the team at Johns Hopkins for a midnight premiere of the rock 'n' roll song he wrote for the big event. "We will never forget this moment," said May who led the New Year's countdown. "This is completely unknown territory." Despite the government shutdown, several NASA scientists and other employees showed up at Johns Hopkins as private citizens, unwilling to miss history in the making. Ultima Thule was unknown until 2014, eight years after New Horizons departed Earth. It was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope and added to New Horizons' itinerary. Deep inside the so-called Kuiper Belt, a frigid expanse beyond Neptune that is also known as the Twilight Zone, Ultima Thule is believed to date back 4.5 billion years to the formation of our solar system. As such, it is "probably the best time capsule we've ever had for understanding the birth of our solar system and the planets in it," Stern said. In classic and medieval literature, Thule was the most distant, northernmost place beyond the known world. Scientists suspect Ultima Thule is a single object no more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) long, though there's a chance it could prove to be two smaller bodies orbiting each other or connected by a slender neck. It is thought to be potato-shaped and dark-colored with a touch of red, possibly from being zapped by cosmic rays for eons. The exact shape and composition won't be known until Ultima Thule starts sending back data in a process expected to last almost two years. "Who knows what we might find? ... Anything's possible out there in this very unknown region," said John Spencer, a deputy project scientist from Southwest Research Institute. "We'll find out soon enough." The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Managers at one of the UK’s biggest providers of agency health workers are pressured into imposing £50 fines on employees who phone in sick as part of a “vicious” and “cut-throat” sales-driven culture, a whistleblower has claimed. A Guardian investigation revealed how Newcross Healthcare, which made £21m in pre-tax profits in 2017, not only failed to give sick pay to carers or nurses but also issued punitive fines when unwell workers cancelled shifts without 24 hours’ notice. Now a whistleblower who worked as a business centre manager for the firm has described an intense sales environment at the company, which employs 7,000 staff providing temporary nurses and care workers for hospitals and residential care homes. The whistleblower, who quit the firm in 2018, alleges: Regional managers pressured branches to impose fines on sick employees, even if they knew absences were genuine. Care homes were forced to send home sick agency staff who had turned up because they were afraid of being docked wages. Managers were put up in a five-star hotel in Gibraltar each year for a “lavish” sales bash where awards would be given out. Managers were tasked with repeatedly cold-calling care and nursing homes to book in shifts for agency workers, with a target of achieving 3,000 hours of shifts a week. The industry watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), has said it has contacted Newcross and is considering taking action. It said: “It is essential that providers take all necessary steps to ensure that people receiving care are not put at risk.” The whistleblower, who did not wish to be named, was one of around 60 business centre managers at branches around the country tasked with filling thousands of hours of shifts a week for agency nurses and carers supplied to local homes and hospitals. He described the firm as vicious and cut-throat and said he quit after becoming disgusted with the culture, which he said was misrepresented when he took up the job. “We were targeted each week as to how many hours we would fill with our staff. I was up to about 3,000 or so hours a week to fill across all my staff,” he said. “I got on well with my staff and my team but the regional manager … the pressure was quite ferocious. They get heavily targeted to make sure they’re filling their quota. I found myself getting to the stage that when someone was calling up saying ‘I can’t do that shift you’ve put me down for next week’, feeling really agitated, thinking: I’m going to have to fill this shift otherwise I’m going to get it in the neck.” He estimated he handed out about 10 £50 fines a month to workers who cancelled shifts. If this number was replicated across the firm’s various branches, it would mean workers were being fined hundreds of times a month. The whistleblower said: “Even if it was someone I had a good working relationship with and knew that their absence was a genuine one, we would still look to hit them with the £50. If we didn’t I would be questioned as to why I didn’t do it and I would have to have a good reason why I didn’t do it. So I felt under pressure to enforce that.” On some occasions care home managers would send Newcross workers home after they had turned up sick because they did not want to be docked wages. The source said: “I would sometimes have the managers phoning up saying, ‘Look, I’ve sent them home but they’re still to get paid because they were here, they’re worried they’re going to lose money from it.’” Regional managers put pressure on branch managers to fill shifts and impose fines to ensure they were not missed, the source said. “I’d been there for a few weeks and it became quite apparent to me that I was there to manage the healthcare workers who were going out to sites, enforcing the reduction of salary for missing of appointments regardless of the scenario,” he said. “For me, if people were phoning up and saying they were unwell, that’s not a planned absence. If they’re unwell, they’re unwell. However, there was no capacity for me to be able to waiver that, or if I did waiver it, as the manager, I had to give a full explanation to why I was going to waive it.” Branch managers who succeeded in cajoling their staff to fill shifts were rewarded handsomely with a lavish annual April bash in the tax haven of Gibraltar, where Newcross’s owners are based. He said: “The business centre managers would be taken off to Gibraltar for the annual get-together where it was very lavish, everything was paid for. It would be a great slap-on-the-back chance for everyone to say look at our figures. Awards would be given out for the people who had taken the most amount of hours. “Everyone was taken to Gibraltar, there was a five-star hotel. Everyone was put up there for a few nights and went to the casino. Whereas the carers don’t get to participate in anything like that. They say they’re employees of Newcross but they’re just treated like agency staff.” Newcross has said it will scrap the £50 charge in April but it has faced calls from the shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, to end it immediately. Debbie Westhead, the CQC’s interim chief inspector of adult social care, said: “CQC will always listen and act when concerns about poor care are raised with us. We have contacted Newcross about this matter and are considering if there are any further steps we need to take. It is essential that providers take all necessary steps to ensure that people receiving care are not put at risk.” Newcross did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

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2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Finalists for the Royal Academy of Engineering Africa prize reveal their designs, from gloves that translate sign language into speech to smart lockers that dispense medicines The Royal Academy of Engineering Africa prize, now in its fifth year, has shortlisted 16 African inventors from six countries to receive funding, training and mentoring for projects intended to revolutionise sectors from agriculture and science to women’s health. The winner will be awarded £25,000 and the three runners up will receive £10,000 each. From smart gloves that turn sign language into audio speech, to water harvesting systems that change air into drinking water, five inventors on course to transform the continent for the better spoke to the Guardian about their innovations. Kenya: Sign-IO Roy Allela’s six-year-old niece was born deaf. She found it difficult to communicate with her family, none of whom knew sign language. So Allela – a 25-year-old Kenyan technology evangelist who works for Intel and tutors data science at Oxford University – invented smart gloves that convert sign language movements into audio speech. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roy Allela has developed a glove that translates sign language to speech via a bluetooth-enabled smartphone. Photograph: Brett Eloff/Royal Academy of Engineering The gloves – named Sign-IO – have flex sensors stitched on to each finger. The sensors quantify the bend of the fingers and process the letter being signed. The gloves are paired via Bluetooth to a mobile phone application that Allela also developed, which then vocalises the letters. “My niece wears the gloves, pairs them to her phone or mine, then starts signing and I’m able to understand what she’s saying,” says Allela. “Like all sign language users, she’s very good at lip reading, so she doesn’t need me to sign back.” Allela piloted the gloves at a special needs school in rural Migori county, south-west Kenya, where feedback helped inform one of the most important aspects of the gloves: the speed at which the language is converted into audio. “People speak at different speeds and it’s the same with people who sign: some are really fast, others are slow, so we integrated that into the mobile application so that it’s comfortable for anyone to use it.” Users can also set the language, gender and pitch of the vocalisation through the app, with accuracy results averaging 93%, says Allela. Perhaps most importantly, the gloves can be packaged in any style the user wants, whether that’s a princess glove or a Spider-Man one, he says. “It fights the stigma associated with being deaf and having a speech impediment. If the gloves look cool, every kid will want to know why you have them on.” The gloves recently won the hardware trailblazer award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Allela is using the prize money to land more accurate vocal predictions. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Sign-IO app, which vocalises words signed by the person wearing the gloves. Photograph: Brett Eloff/Royal Academy of Engineering His goal is to place at least two pairs of gloves in every special needs school in Kenya, and believes they could be used to help the 34 million children worldwide who suffer disabling hearing loss. “I was trying to envision how my niece’s life would be if she had the same opportunities as everyone else in education, employment, all aspects of life,” says Allela. “The general public in Kenya doesn’t understand sign language so when she goes out, she always needs a translator. Picture over the long term that dependency, how much that plagues or impairs her progress in life … when it affects you personally, you see how hard people have it in life. That’s why I’ve really strived to develop this project to completion.” South Africa: Pelebox smart lockers When Neo Hutiri was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2014, the South African engineer was forced to spend three hours every two weeks waiting at his local clinic just to collect his medication. Queuing alongside patients requiring chronic therapy for health issues ranging from cancer to Aids, Hutiri wondered how he could apply technology to the problem and ease the burden for South Africa’s overrun public hospitals. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Neo Hutiri with his Pelebox smart locker, which is designed to cut down the amount of time that patients have to wait for their medication. Photograph: James Oatway/Royal Academy of Engineering “We have the biggest antiretroviral [ARV] therapy programme in the world: over 4.6m patients receive ARVs and with chronic therapy treatments like this you have to visit the facility every month to receive medication,” says Hutiri. “It dawned on me that patients are spending a lot of time – 4.3m man hours in total every month – just waiting in queues. So my initial hypothesis was to take patients’ waiting time from three hours to under two minutes.” Hutiri’s first move was to automate the filing system as much as possible by designing the Pelebox (pele for fast in Setswana), a smart locker that acts as a self-service kiosk. The locker is stocked by health workers, who scan a patient’s medication into a specialised cubicle. The number of the locker and a one-time pin are sent directly to the patient’s mobile phone, with the pin allowing the user to open the locker. South Africa’s pharmaceutical council was intrigued by the Pelebox, but needed reassurance that the right medications would be delivered to the right patients, every single time. Hutiri piloted the project in Pretoria last year and was overjoyed at the results: 4,700 medications were delivered at a 100% success rate – and with an average collection time of under 36 seconds, says Hutiri. The 30-year-old entrepreneur has now signed a contract with the department of health to roll the lockers out in eight of South Africa’s nine provinces, a feat he is hugely proud of. “Eighty-three percent of the South African population relies on state-funded care – my parents are within that population and on long-term medication – but they get short-handed because there isn’t enough of an incentive for entrepreneurs in my sector to serve them as they tend to be low-income,” says Hutiri. “I wanted to design something that you could place as easily in [the affluent area of] Sandton as in a township. I wanted the product to stand out because then the patients feel a high degree of pride, they think: ‘This product was designed for me’. When you treat people with respect, they pass that respect on to others.” Uganda: The Vertical Farm More than two-thirds of Uganda’s population engages in farming, but rapid population growth in the capital, Kampala, means that not everyone who would like to grow their own fruit and veg has the space or land to do so. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paul Matovu with his Vertical Farm, designed to hold up to 200 plants. Photograph: James Oatway/Royal Academy of Engineering This was the issue faced by Paul Matovu, who was born into a family of 20 children and raised for a short time by his grandparents in rural Uganda, where he learned all about growing crops. After returning to Kampala as a cash-strapped university student, he began looking for space-saving ways to grow his own food. His solution was the “farm in a box”, a sustainably sourced timber box measuring 90cm wide by 90cm high that can hold up to 200 plants. The farms currently retail at 300,000 shillings (£64), a high price for the average Ugandan, says Matovu, but as the boxes produce food worth 1.29m shillings (£275) every year, costs can be quickly recouped. The farms also have a wormery in their middle to compost household waste, the castings of which can then be used to fertilise the crops, helping to keep inputs low but still organic, he says. “Our goal is to roll out the farms to the wealthy, because they do not mind how expensive the boxes are, and to produce three to five farms per day,” says Matovu. “Then we can subsidise sales to the poor.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest The farm boxes have a wormery in their middle to compost household waste, which can then be used to fertilise the crops. Photograph: James Oatway/Royal Academy of Engineering Kenya: Chanjo Plus In 2015, Kenyan Collince Oluoch was working as a community health worker in Nairobi, knocking door-to-door to register children for a national immunisation drive. The work was tedious and difficult: every volunteer was required to register 200 children, but because some families were at work or out shopping or had simply moved away, the targets couldn’t always be met. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Collince Oluoch’s mobile platform helps improve the identification and registration of children targeted for life-saving vaccinations. Photograph: Brett Eloff/Royal Academy of Engineering Oluoch, 27, was faced with a choice: to invent names of children to meet the target (as many other health workers were doing), or to modify the existing pen-and-paper registration system into a digital database. He opted for the latter, and in 2016 built Chanjo Plus, an online vaccination platform that could be accessed by health clinics and hospitals across the country. “The initial plan was to have an accountable platform to put the faces behind the numbers,” says Oluoch. “We have universal health coverage in Kenya and the aim is that by 2030 we will leave no one behind. But how do you leave no one behind if you don’t even know who everyone is?” The database uses information compiled by community health workers to build a digital identity for each child, with details on which vaccinations were given and when and where they were given. These records can then be pulled up by any public health clinic anywhere, making it easy to identify which children are falling through the immunisation gaps and provide real-time data on vaccination drives. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Across sub-Saharan Africa, one in five children still don’t have access to life-saving vaccines. Photograph: Brett Eloff/Royal Academy of Engineering Chanjo Plus has so far enrolled 10,000 children at three clinics in Nairobi, and aims to scale up with the ministry of health to target the 1.5 million children born in Kenya every year, says Oluoch. He then hopes it can be a platform used across sub-Saharan Africa, where one in five children still don’t have access to life-saving vaccines. “People are still dying because of measles, polio, diarrhoea, and pneumonia – diseases that can be prevented and should not be causing deaths now. Getting every child access to vaccines translates into healthy lives for families: it means poverty reduction and greater access to education.” Kenya: Majik Water When Beth Koigi moved into her university dormitory in eastern Kenya, she was horrified that the water coming out of the tap was filthy and laden with bacteria. Within months, she had built her first filter and was soon selling filters to others. When drought hit in 2016 and water restrictions saw Koigi’s water supply turned off entirely, she began thinking about water scarcity and its relation to climate change. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Beth Koigi plans to use her Majik Water innovation to increase access to drinking water among low-income households. Photograph: Brett Eloff/Royal Academy of Engineering “Going for months without any tap water became a very bad situation,” she says. “Where I used to live, we didn’t get any tap water at all, so even doing simple things like going to the toilet – I would go to the mall instead. Having no water at all is worse than just having unpurified water, so I started thinking about a way to not have to rely on the council.” While on a four-month programme at the Silicon Valley-based thinktank Singularity University, Koigi, 27, joined up with two other women – American environmental scientist Anastasia Kaschenko and British economist Clare Sewell – to create Majik Water, which captures water from the air and converts it into drinking water using solar technology. The device – which won first prize this year at the EDF Africa awards – could provide a solution for the 1.8 billion people predicted to have a shortage of water by 2025, according to the UN, says Kaschenko. “There’s an interesting relationship between climate change and the water in the atmosphere,” she says. “There’s six times more water in the air than in all the rivers in the world. With every 1F increase in temperature, water begins to evaporate on the ground but increases by about 4% in the atmosphere, and that’s water that’s not being tapped.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Majik Water system, which can generate up to 10 litres of filtered water a day. Photograph: Brett Eloff/Royal Academy of Engineering Majik Water – from the Swahili maji for water and “k” for kuna (harvest) – uses desiccants such as silica gels to draw water from the air. The gels are then heated up with solar power to release the water. The current system can generate up to 10 litres of filtered water per day, with the team looking to scale up to 100-litre systems at a cost of only £0.08 per 10 litres. The solar panels used for the prototype are the most expensive input on the device, says Koigi, who is looking for ways to drive those costs down.

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The Latest on the stabbing of three people in Manchester (all times local): 12:20 p.m. British Prime Minister Theresa May says she is thinking of the victims of a New Year's Eve attack at a rail station in Manchester. She tweeted Tuesday that "My thoughts are with those who were injured in the suspected terrorist attack in Manchester last night." The prime minister also thanked the emergency services "for their courageous response" to the attack, which started shortly before 9 p.m. on Monday. Two people are still being treated for knife wounds in the hospital. A third person who was injured has been released. ——— 12:10 p.m. Police in the English city of Manchester say they are treating the New Year's Eve stabbing of three people as a terrorist incident. Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said Tuesday two people suffered very serious injuries in the attack. A police sergeant who was stabbed in the shoulder has been released from the hospital. Hopkins said the police investigation is continuing. He praised the "bravery" of four police officers who subdued the suspect at Manchester's Victoria Station. The suspect has been arrested but not yet charged or identified. An eyewitness said he was chanting Islamic slogans during the stabbings ——— 10:10 a.m. British counterterrorism police are questioning a man accused of stabbing three people at a Manchester railway station on New Year's Eve. Police said Tuesday two people were taken to a hospital for treatment with knife injuries and a British Transport Police officer was stabbed in the shoulder and briefly hospitalized. He has since been released. The incident happened very close to Manchester Arena, where a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert in 2017. A witness has said the man with the knife shouted "Allah" during the incident but officials have not confirmed that. Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said the incident is "not ongoing" and there is "currently no intelligence to suggest that there is any wider threat."

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Homicides surged about 40 percent last year in the nation's capital while nearby Baltimore continued to notch almost one killing per day — defying the downward trend in other big U.S. cities. According to The Washington Post, a total of 160 homicides as of Monday night was driven by the more frequent use of guns in crimes. Law enforcement officials told the newspaper that petty disputes between people who already know each other and are armed account for many of D.C.'s killings. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Despite that, the city also saw its share of heartbreaking, seemingly random deaths. One especially wrenching c ase involved a 10-year-old girl named Makiyah Wilson who was shot and killed as she clutched a $5 bill to buy a treat from an ice cream truck in July. Police have made several arrests in that case. "I'm horrified," Langston Civic Association President Sydelle Moore told WJLA regarding the homicide spike. "Everyone is afraid." Officials would like to see the homicide trend change in 2019. “When you look at our known homicide offenders in the city, about 40 percent of those have a prior gun arrest,” D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham told the Post. “At all levels of the criminal justice system, we have to do better.” Neighboring Baltimore has reportedly seen the greatest raw number increase in killings of any other city than Chicago, which has four times the population. In 2011, there were 211 homicides in Baltimore; by last year, that number had risen to 307. NEW STATE LAWS FOR THE NEW YEAR: GUN RIGHTS, ABORTION AND WAGES In Baltimore's case, the Post reports, the wave of violence began not long after the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray, who suffered a severe neck injury and lost consciousness while he was handcuffed and shackled inside the back of a police van. “It’s an open market, open season for killing,” Daphne Alston, whose son Tariq was murdered in 2008, told the publication. “After Freddie Gray, things just went berserk.” Authorities said that poor relations between community members and law enforcement officers, along with homicide detectives who are simply overwhelmed with caseloads, fed into the problem. OVERFLOWING GARBAGE, FECES PROMPT YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK OFFICIALS TO CLOSE SOME AREAS “Our clearance rate isn’t what I think it should be,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle, who has been running the department on an interim basis since May, said in an interview with the Post. “We’ve got a really, really talented homicide unit, but we’re understaffed.” In Baltimore, each detective is responsible for about nine homicide cases in addition to other "suspicious death" cases. However, a Post analysis found that big police departments with success in making arrests tend to assign detectives "fewer than five cases a year." Residents say that understaffing often means there's little chance for justice to prevail. It also contributes to Baltimore's shockingly low arrest rate, which has not gotten above 30 percent since plummeting in 2015 following Gray's death. “This boils down to the relationship between communities and police,” Tara Huffman, director of criminal and juvenile justice programs at Open Society Institute-Baltimore, said. “They need people to come forward, they need people to answer the door when they knock, and they need people to talk to them on the scene.”

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A few Kentucky cops went viral for mourning the loss of a truckload of doughnuts. The driver of a Krispy Kreme doughnut truck noticed his vehicle was smoking on New Year's Eve, so he called 911. And while the driver was able to safely escape before fire crews arrived and flames engulfed the truck, the doughnuts didn't make it. The Lexington Police Department posted a few photos online depicting the heartbroken officers with their heads cast down. "No words," the officers wrote, and their colleagues from across the nation - from Colorado to Chicago - were quick to respond with messages of support. “We feel your loss,” the University of Kentucky Police Department wrote. “We donut what else to say.” A North Carolina cop added his condolences. “In this line of work, some things can’t be unseen,” he wrote. “My thoughts are with @lexkypolice officers at this time of tragedy.” Other commenters online noted the doughnuts were really "krispy" after the box truck fire. The investigation into the fire is ongoing as the cause is unknown.

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Texas authorities released a surveillance image of a pickup truck the man suspected of killing a 7-year-old girl was driving the day of the apparent "unprovoked" attack. Jazmine Barnes, 7, was killed when the unknown suspect pulled up next to her mother's car on Sunday morning and began shooting, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. Harris County Sheriffs Office Authorities, who are desperate to find Jazmine's killer, have released a photo of the suspect's red pickup truck -- among the 1,300 similar vehicles registered in the area. "We won't rest until this precious child's killer is brought to justice," Gonzalez tweeted Monday. Harris County Sheriffs Office Jazmine's mother, 30-year-old LaPorsha Washington, was shot and wounded in the incident, Gonzalez said. Three of Jazmine's sisters were also in Washington's car at the time. Jazmine's younger sister suffered glass-fragment injuries. Her two older sisters weren't hurt, but they were "shaken" and "devastated," authorities said. KTRK KTRK "I need everyone to pull together to get justice for my child," Washington told ABC Houston station KTRK-TV. "She was innocent. She did not deserve this." Our hearts go out to Jazmine's grieving classmates and teachers at Monahan Elementary in Sheldon ISD. We won't rest until this precious child's killer is brought to justice. pic.twitter.com/cEWcwdR9Uy — Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) January 1, 2019 The suspect was described as a bearded white man, possibly in his 40s, wearing a red hoodie and driving a four-door, red or maroon pickup truck, officials said. The sheriff's office urged anyone with information to call 911, tweet at @CrimeStopHOU or call 713-222-TIPS. ABC News' Enjoli Francis contributed to this report.

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2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Image copyright Nigeria Presidency Image example President Muhammadu Buhari 'Make Nigerians no fear for dis 2019 wey be election year, plenti presidential candidates don commit demsef to peace, and dat peace na im we go get.' Na di assurance wey dey inside di special new year message of President Muhammadu Buhari to Nigerians. Buhari also use im January 1 statement do campaign wen e tok say; "I hope you (im kontri pipo) go vote for us dis 2019 to get anoda four years for office, as una do for 2015." New year message suppose be special greetings, quotes and texts to wish love ones joy inside di new year, but e be like say President Buhari no send wen e add election mata inside im message. By 16 February, 2019 voters for Nigeria presidential election go use wetin di candidates don tok to vote for dem. "Elections no be do or die affair, and make we no approach dis election inside we democracy with fear..." 'We dey motivated by nothing oda dan service to motherland, and service without selfishness or personal interest" Di Nigerian leader tok.'I fit assure all of una say we dey make steady and sustainable progress ontop evri area of national life. Those wey no dey bias fit see and appreciate di progress di kontri don make since 2015.'Buhari say New Year provide opportunity to renew commitment, and di Nigerian leader invite im kontri pipo to rededicate demsef to di vision of Nigeria wey fit work for all.

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CONCORD, N.H. – Before she launched a presidential exploratory committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts reached out in recent weeks to a bunch of leading Democrats in neighboring New Hampshire, the state that for a century’s held the first primary along the road to the White House. “She asked questions about the lay of the land, what was happening, what the top issues were, who was organized, who was here, who had staff, and who was trying to recruit staff,” a top progressive lawmaker in the state, who asked for anonymity in order to speak more freely, told Fox News. Monday’s widely expected step was a major move by the well-known progressive senator towards setting up a White House campaign. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP And it could also set up a bruising battle for the nomination with another populist firebrand who also hails from a state that neighbors New Hampshire: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Warren is now expected “hit the road very soon” to visit New Hampshire and Iowa and the other early voting states in the primary and caucus calendar, according to sources familiar with the senator’s campaign operation. But those trips, they note, are subject to any actions needed to end the current federal government shutdown. Warren, who in November easily won re-election to a second term representing neighboring Massachusetts in the Senate, avoided setting foot in the Granite State during the 2018 campaign, unlike many other potential Democratic presidential contenders. Sanders parachuted into the state twice. But she did dispatch two of her aides to work for the New Hampshire Democratic Party during the midterms. ELIZABETH WARREN DRINKS BEER, GIVES 2020 THOUGHTS IN INSTAGRAM LIVESTREAM Longtime state party chairman Ray Buckle also received a recent call from Warren. On Monday, he welcomed the 69-year old senator into the race, saying "we look forward to a vibrant and inspiring nominating contest.” While it’s far too early to tell if the Democratic nominating race will be vibrant or inspiring, it is likely it will be jam-packed, with well more than 20 potential contenders seriously mulling White House bids. And one of those is potential rivals is Sanders The Independent senator’s crushing defeat of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 New Hampshire primary launched him into a marathon fight for the nomination with the eventual nominee. If the 77-year old Sanders joins Warren in running for the White House, it would set up a potential blockbuster battle for the progressive base of the Democratic Party. “Bernie and Warren are both great on the issues and for me it’s a question of what each of their organizations will look like and who of the two of them has a better shot against (President Donald) Trump,” the progressive lawmaker said. But a veteran progressive New Hampshire based activist worried about the consequences of a race that included both Warren and Sanders – as well as possibility of liberal lawmakers like Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jeff Merkley of Oregon as well as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. And Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California may also vie for the progressive mantle. “I’m scared. I think it’s a disaster waiting to happen for progressives,” said the alarmed activist, who lamented the possibility of a divided field on the left allowing a more moderate to win the nomination. “It gets much, much, harder for a true progressive to win if there are so many credible candidates of that ilk vying for the nomination.” Political scientist and New England College vice president of academic affairs Wayne Lesperance noted that Sanders “captured the sort of the anger and frustration that a lot of voters had with business as usual. Enter Elizabeth Warren now, who can speak to a lot of those same messages.” “He (Sanders) occupied rare space last cycle because there wasn’t another progressive voice that gained a lot of national attention. This cycle will not be that way,” Lesperance predicted. “They’re going to be competing with each other for the same pool of voters, and that may open the door for a different kind of candidate, more moderate, more centrist Democrat.” A primary with the senators from Massachusetts and Vermont would also set up a fist fight for home field advantage. EPIC BATTLE FOR THE LEFT TAKING SHAPE IN 2020, AS BERNIE SANDERS FORCED TO SHARE SPOTLIGHT “The advantage New Englanders have running in New Hampshire is they speak the language. They understand the notion of the traditions, the town hall meetings,” Lesperance explained. There’s a history of candidates from next door winning the primary. Think of Michael Dukakis in 1988, Mitt Romney in 2012, and Sanders in 2016. The last time big name candidates from Massachusetts and Vermont faced off in the New Hampshire primary was in 2004, when then-Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts topped second place finisher and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in a Democratic presidential contest that included seven candidates. But the “backyard advantage” could also become burden, warned University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala. “It’s an advantage to have one of those first contests in your backyard but it does come with a lengthy set of expectations,” he said. And he warned that the state could become a “must win” for either Warren or Sanders.

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BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s king will be officially crowned in elaborate ceremonies on May 4-6 as the latest ruler in the centuries-old monarchy, the royal palace said on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn attends the annual Royal Ploughing Ceremony in central Bangkok, Thailand, May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha King Maha Vajiralongkorn, 66, has been serving since shortly after his father died in 2016 following a 70-year reign. “His Majesty deems it fit to hold the coronation ceremony per royal traditions for the good fortune of the nation and the kingdom, to be enjoyed by the hopeful people,” a palace statement said. In the three-day coronation, the king will be officially crowned on May 4 and a celebration procession will be held on May 5. The king will meet the public and foreign dignitaries on May 6, the palace said. Vajiralongkorn, also known by the title King Rama X, became Thailand’s constitutional monarch two years ago following the death of his revered father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, on Oct. 13, 2016. His official coronation has been delayed until after a year-long mourning period for Bhumibol, who was cremated in October 2017 in a grand royal funeral in Bangkok. King Bhumibol was revered by Thais during his seven decades on the throne and the deep relationship between the monarchy and the military helped facilitate a smooth royal transition following his death. Since then, Vajiralongkorn has overseen sweeping changes to royal affairs, including the running of palace finances, which were formerly managed by the government. Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932, but the king remains supremely regarded as the spiritual protector of its people and culture. The kingdom is due to hold elections on Feb. 24, and the current election timeline means the coronation will likely take place before a new government is formed. The elections are meant to restore democracy after a 2014 military coup ousted an elected prime minister, though changes to the constitution in the interim ensure the military will retain a great deal of control.

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2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Image copyright EPA Image caption Intersex people can register as the third category on birth certificates, passports and other official documents Intersex people in Germany can now legally identify themselves as a third gender, under a new law adopted in December. People who do not fit the biological definition of male or female can now choose the category "diverse" on official documents. Those choosing the option will need a doctor's certificate to register. Intersex people are born with both male and female sex characteristics, which can appear at birth or later in life. Other countries have approved laws in recent years to help recognise intersex people. Austria's constitutional court made a similar ruling to Germany's in June, while Australia, New Zealand, Malta, India and Canada have all passed measures to redress issues facing intersex citizens. The UN says up to 1.7% of the world's population are born with intersex traits - about the same number of people with red hair. This is separate from a person's gender identity or sexual orientation. But many face stigma, legal discrimination or even forced surgery because of these characteristics. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jeanette was 50 when she discovered the truth about her own body Germany previously allowed intersex people to opt out of choosing either male or female as a gender in 2013. But in 2017 the country's top court ruled it was discrimination to deny people a gender, after a person registered as female had a chromosome test confirming they were neither sex. Germany's parliament approved the law change last month, to come into effect on 1 January. BBC Europe regional editor Danny Aeberhard says some people believe it is a step too far, while gender activists think the need for a doctor's certificate will make proof harder for intersex people without physical characteristics.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

CLOSE With the partial government shutdown stretching into 2019, here's what you need to know about the effects. USA TODAY The U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Erik S. Lesser/epa-EFE) Sam Samhouri's corner cafe in Oakland sits on what might normally be considered a prime piece of real estate: Directly across the street from an 18-floor office building. The problem for Samhouri is that the campus that supplies most of his customers is the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building. That means many of his lunchtime regulars have been furloughed by the partial government shutdown now in its second week. "There’s nobody there," said Samhouri, whose City Cup cafe employs three people. As the shutdown entered its 11th day on News Year's Day there were signs the lapse was beginning to have an effect, not just on the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been furloughed or forced to work without pay but also on the businesses and industries that rely on them. While the impact has beenobscured by Christmas, when government offices were already scheduled to be closed, it may become more pronounced as much of the nation returns to work Wednesday. Some businesses are waiting on government loan approvals. Others, located near federal buildings or national parks, are worried about losing their customer base. More: The government shutdown is here. How does it affect you? The shutdown began Dec. 22 when President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats failed to reach an agreement over White House demands for as much as $5 billion in additional funding for a border wall. With both sides dug in, there has been little indication that the impasse will be resolved quickly. National parks remained open, though some reduced their services. Smithsonian museums in Washington have accommodated visitors so far, but are expected to close this week. Social Security checks have continued and airport screeners remain at work. But for many, the impact has been tangible. Federal workers hit "This time it’s going to hurt a lot more because of the time of year it is," said Justin Tarovisky, a corrections officer at a federal prison in West Virginia and the executive vice president of the local American Federation of Government Employees union. "We work in a tough environment," Tarovisky said. "Not only does it linger in the back of your mind, it kind of drives morale down a little bit." Though there is a heavy concentration of federal workers in the Washington region, the majority of federal employees work outside of the nation's capital. California, Texas, Florida and Georgia, for instance, account for about 20 percent of the overall civilian workforce, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. In the past, including the 16-day shutdown in 2013, federal workers received back pay. But that outcome is not guaranteed because it requires Congress and the White House to work together to pass a law mandating the back pay. "I think one day of a shutdown is too much," said Ryan Baugh, who works for the Office of Immigration Statistics at the Department of Homeland Security and is an AFGE steward in the office. "As it goes on the effects will be more strongly and widely felt." Both Tarovisky and Baugh stressed they were speaking on behalf of the union, not their agencies. The AFGE sued the Trump administration on Monday, claiming it is illegal to require "essential" government employees to work without pay. While Trump has delayed his annual trip to Florida to remain in Washington during the impasse there was little evidence negotiations to resolve the standoff were underway. Trump and congressional Democrats continued to trade partisan jabs, a sign that officials were no where close to a deal to reopen shuttered agencies. I’m in the Oval Office. Democrats, come back from vacation now and give us the votes necessary for Border Security, including the Wall. You voted yes in 2006 and 2013. One more yes, but with me in office, I’ll get it built, and Fast! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2018 House Democrats, who will take control of that chamber Thursday, were readying a proposal to reopen the government by providing full-year funding for most departments. The proposal would fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8, giving both sides additional time to strike a deal on border security. "This legislation reopens government services, ensures workers get the paychecks they’ve earned and restores certainty to the lives of the American people," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement on Monday. It was not immediately clear if Trump would accept the proposal. "Democrats, come back from vacation now and give us the votes necessary for Border Security, including the Wall," Trump tweeted on Monday. Small businesses waiting The lack of progress has left some small businesses in in the lurch. When Andrew Rickabaugh and his brother-in-law decided to start a restoration business this year in Huntsville, Alabama, they reached out to the Small Business Administration to a guarantee a loan to help them buy equipment. The process was going smoothly – Rickabaugh said he expected approval around Christmas – until the shutdown hit. The Small Business Administration guaranteed over $30 billion in loans to companies in the fiscal year that ended in 2017 but processing of most loans was suspended when the agency closed. Rickabaugh couldn't reach local SBA officials in Alabama. "We’re having to do things a little differently than maybe we had planned," said Rickabaugh, whose company, Rick-N-Ball Restoration, fixes damage caused by water, mold, smoke and other hazards. "It’s unfortunate that the inability of politicians to come to an agreement [means] people like us...pay a price." Rickabaugh said he's pushing forward with the business, relying on his own credit. He described the government shutdown as a "speed bump that we will overcome whether that loan comes through or not." Officials near federal park lands remained concerned about how an extended shutdown might affect local businesses. In Florida, most of the state's federal wildlife refuges and parks were at least partially open Monday. And that meant fishing and birding guides, as well as other services, were also open – for now. Everglades City Mayor Howie Grimm said keeping those businesses running is crucial to protecting his town. "If they would shut them down, that would hurt for sure," Grimm said. "Hopefully, they can get things worked out and the country can go back to work." More: Donald Trump, venting fury over budget fight, threatens to close border Contributing: The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press, Bart Jansen Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/01/government-shutdown-beginning-have-impact-small-businesses/2421780002/

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

A police officer was among three people stabbed on New Year's Eve in Manchester, England, in what authorities are considering a "terrorist incident." The attack happened Monday just before 9 p.m. at the city's Victoria train station, which is close to Manchester Arena. That's where a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017. "Last night we experienced a horrific attack on people out to simply enjoy the New Year's Eve celebrations in Manchester," said Chief Constable Ian Hopkins. "That the incident happened so close to the scene of the terrorist attack on 22 May 2017 makes it even more dreadful," Hopkins said. The injuries to the victims, who were not identified, were serious but not considered life-threatening, police said. Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images "My thoughts are with the couple, who are still being treated in hospital for their serious injuries, and with the brave British Transport police officer, who was also stabbed during the attack," Hopkins added. The officer has been released from the hospital, police said. Officers tackled and detained a 30-year-old suspect shortly after the attack, police said. Sam Clack/PA via AP British Prime Minister Theresa May thanked first responders for their “courageous response.” My thoughts are with those who were injured in the suspected terrorist attack in Manchester last night. I thank the emergency services for their courageous response. — Theresa May (@theresa_may) January 1, 2019 The suspect has not been identified or charged and is being held on suspicion of attempted murder. There was not an ongoing threat stemming from the incident, said Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts, though extra officers will be visible on the streets and Britain's official threat level is still set at "severe." Potts urged the public to come forward with any additional photos or video of the incident to help with the investigation. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

“Republic of Thirst” is a three-part series made possible by a generous fellowship from the Robert Novak Foundation. Part I of examined the debate over how California’s scarce water resources should be allocated. Part III will examine whether those resources can be expanded through technological innovations like desalination. Part II examines whether more can be done to store and manage the water that falls naturally on the Golden State. *** The water burst out through the spillway in a constant gush, a mad torrent of white, unstoppable and ferocious. It swept down the smooth concrete — then pounded into the new cracks in the failed spillway, sending a spray hundreds of feet into the air and carving a new chasm in the hillside. Alongside the ruined structure, new channels appeared in the earthen emergency overflow spillway, strewn with rip rack rock that had been dropped by helicopter to keep the hillside from collapsing, to save the cities downstream. Viewed from a small airplane above the Oroville Dam — at 770 feet, the highest in the U.S. — in March 2017, the future of water storage in California looked doubtful. That year, California’s deep drought was broken by record rainfall, filling that dam and many others. As water continued to pour in, authorities opened the spillway gates as wide as possible. But the concrete cracked, and the main spillway failed — spectacularly. The earthen emergency spillway, used for the first time ever, eroded itself and nearly failed. Initially, local authorities evacuated nearly 200,000 people downstream of the dam. But a herculean effort by engineers managed to save and stabilize the emergency spillway, averting a massive disaster. Still, the crisis provoked questions about whether state authorities had mismanaged Oroville Dam or ignored warnings about the structural integrity of the spillway — or even of the dam itself, which, some claimed, had already begin to leak. To critics of dams, especially among environmentalists, the events at Oroville Dam were further proof of the dangers of dams and reservoirs — which, they argued, stored water only at great cost to nature and great risk to human life. To others, especially advocates of industry and agriculture, the Oroville near-disaster was proof the state government had neglected California’s infrastructure needs in favor of redistribution, water conservation mandates, or flashy pet projects. *** Life as we know it in California today would be unthinkable without the extensive system of dams, reservoirs, pumps and aqueducts that make urban life possible and that have transformed the drought-prone Central Valley into the most productive farming region on earth. And yet it is a system that remains almost frozen in time, constructed largely during the early 20th century, the New Deal era, and the postwar boom that followed — designed for a population of 10 million, in a state now reaching 40 million. It is also a system replete with ironies. The state that gave Ronald Reagan to America, and with him a new brand of unapologetic conservatism, is one in which the survival of the population depends on massive investments in infrastructure — albeit paid for, ultimately, by water users themselves. Moreover, the liberal cities that have incubated America’s utopian environmental movement for decades could not exist without ongoing human intervention in the environment that brings water from mountaintop to tap. For decades, policymakers have debated whether to build new reservoirs. One project, the Auburn Dam, was authorized by Congress in 1965 for flood control, but later abandoned over structural and environmental concerns. Numerous other proposals have been studied for decades, with little progress at the state or federal level — though local authorities have built their own projects, such as the Los Vaqueros Reservoir in the East San Francisco Bay, one of the few projects environmentalists have not opposed (though many have since opposed its expansion.) Another project, the Sites Reservoir, has been debated for decades. Rather than capturing water by blocking a river with a dam, the reservoir would be built in a valley with minimal water and would receive excess water during floods, relieving pressure on other dams and allowing them to store more. As Robert Dolezal of the California Water Alliance, a non-profit advocacy group funded by the state’s business community, told Breitbart News: Sites Reservoir … reduces the flood potential of the Sacramento River … and it allows the entire Central Valley system, all the other major dams in the north — Trinity, Shasta, Oroville, and Folsom — to rebalance … [A]s much as 3 million more acre-feet of water can be stored in Trinity, Shasta, Oroville and Folsom because they don’t have to prevent flooding of Sacramento and other downriver communities, rebalancing the system. A similar proposal to raise the height of the Shasta Dam has a similar purpose, as would Temperance Flat on the San Joquin River near Fresno. But critics say these dams would achieve little for storage, while hurting fish populations and destroying Native American heritage sites. They call such projects “vampire dams” — “because they so often rise from the dead” after being rejected by state leaders, one wrote recently. The divisions over water storage do not match partisan divisions on other issues. In the Central Valley, Democrats tend to be as vociferous in their advocacy for water storage as Republicans are. And in the past, Republicans were as skeptical of such projects as urban Democrats are today. Regardless of political predilection, during years of drought, one thought pervades public consciousness: how much water is left? Residents anxiously turn to the state’s reservoirs as they slowly drain, and dry. The consequences of poor planning, and political infighting, have become clear — from a distance, at least for now. Across the ocean, the South African city of Cape Town, Africa’s most advanced and cosmopolitan city, provides a new warning. Its population has doubled over the past two decades, but it has not built much new water storage capacity — thanks, in part, to the fact that the national government has authority over water and the local government is controlled by the opposition. As a result, the city nearly ran out of water in 2018, forcing severe restrictions on residents. That foreshadows California’s grim fate — if it cannot find solutions now. *** “Droughts are nature’s fault. Water shortages are our fault.” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) greeted me in his office on a frigid Tuesday in December. He is one of the last seven Republicans left in the 53-strong California congressional delegation after Democrats won the midterm elections. The hallway was strewn with the furniture of departing GOP colleagues, but for McClintock, it was business as usual. And the business at hand was water storage in California. A continent away, frantic negotiations were continuing on the eve of the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) decision on the Bay-Delta Plan, the controversial new policy that will mandate that rivers in the San Joaquin watershed must have an average of 40% “unimpeded flow” during the spring months — a decision that shifts precious water from farmers and cities to the environment in an effort to save threatened fish populations. McClintock’s office was well-apprised of the state of talks between the various parties, including outgoing Governor Jerry Brown and incoming governor Gavin Newsom. The two liberal Democrats asked the SWRCB to postpone its decision, originally scheduled for November, to Dec. 12 to leave time for voluntary agreements with local water authorities. (The day following my meeting with McClintock, the SWRCB voted to approve the Bay-Delta Plan, despite some agreements being reached.) The governors’ real priority, some skeptical observers claimed, was to secure enough water for the California Waterfix — the “Twin Tunnels” project that will divert water from the Sacramento River under the California Delta to be pumped south. But that is a fight about allocation. McClintock focused on storage, noting that the cheapest and best way to solve the state’s water problems — measured in cost per acre-foot — is to build more reservoirs rather than letting much of the state’s rainfall run out to sea. McClintock reminded me that it has been 40 years since California’s last dam, the New Melones Dam, was completed in 1978. The state’s largest water reservoir — by far — is the natural reservoir provided by its Cascades and Sierra Nevada Mountain Range snowpack. That dwarfs the man-made facilities and, through gradual snowmelt in spring, continuously refills the man-made reservoirs long after winter rains and snows have stopped for the season. Though smaller than nature’s own reservoir, California’s system of man-made reservoirs is vast — and complex. The Public Policy Institute of California notes that “state and federal agencies manage 240 large reservoirs that account for 60% of the state’s storage capacity,” with the rest of the state’s reservoirs owned and operated by local water agencies, or by private entities for use on private lands. The California Department of Water Resources notes: “On average, California receives about 200 million acre-feet of water per year in the form of rain and snow.” (It adds that the state rarely experiences an “average” year.) The state’s reservoirs can capture about 42 million acre-feet of that — roughly one-fifth. The rest seeps into underground aquifers, or flows out to the sea. Dolezal notes that California uses an average of about 80 million acre-feet of water per year, and over the past two decades, roughly half of that is preserved for environmental use — dropping to 40% in the most recent drought, with agriculture using just over 40%, in both wet and dry years. The reservoir system has a variety of purposes — and storage is just one of them. Many dams and reservoirs were built for flood control. The state’s capital city of Sacramento, which sits at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers, was inundated during the Great Flood of 1862, which “turned enormous regions of the state into inland seas for months,” Scientific American recalled. That event, and others like it, fueled enthusiasm for building dams. California’s dams are also multipurpose facilities, providing hydroelectric power generation; water storage and supply; recreation; and flood management protection. But tn times of drought, such as the unusually severe drought that gripped the state from 2011 to 2017, storage is the most salient priority. And McClintock believes there is too little of it. He and others argue that California can add to its storage capacity relatively easily — not just by building new dams, but expanding existing ones, such as the Shasta Dam, one of the major reservoirs in the federal Central Valley Project, which supplies water to farmers hundreds of miles south. Shasta Dam was built under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War Two, reaching 602 feet, though it was designed to be even bigger. (An even bigger dam was envisioned for the Klamath River, but was canceled in the 1970s; today dams along the Klamath are set to be torn down.) “Simply finishing the Shasta Dam to its design height [of 800 feet] could add nine million acre-feet to the system,” McClintock says. Indeed, the Trump administration, is proposing to raise the dam by 18.5 feet, increasing the capacity of the dam by 7 percent (630,000 acre-feet) — if tiny salamander species that environmentalists wish to have declared “endangered” do not stop plans for expansion. Another proposal is to build the Sites Reservoir in the foothills west of the small town of Maxwell, just over an hour north of Sacramento. As noted earlier, the Sites Reservoir would store 500,000 acre-feet of “off-stream” water, meaning that it would not dam an active river, but rather be a site for water from other sites to be stored as available and used as needed. Proponents argue that it would contribute to environmental quality as well as the state’s storage capacity. Crucially, the Sites Reservoir appears to have some startup funding. As much as half of the money will come from a special water bond passed by voters in Proposition 1 of 2014, which set aside $2.7 billion (of $7.5 billion) for water storage projects. The rest of the project would theoretically be funded by long-term contracts for water not reserved for public use. Jim Watson, general manager of the Sites Project Authority, told Breitbart News that he was confident the project would proceed, given the support of the voters for water storage when they passed Proposition 1. He noted that $816 million had been set aside for Sites — the largest project funded by the proposition bond, compared to several competing projects. He added that local water agencies had also been working with state and federal authorities in preparing studies for the project. “Some of the water that will be produced from the project will be dedicated for environmental projects,” he said, nothing that some water would help fish, and some would supply existing refuges that support waterfowl species. Given that “no formal opposition” was raised by environmentalists during the approval process for Sites, he said, he did not anticipate significant opposition from them — though they were skeptical the reservoir would provide the water promised. Watson said the project was consulting with environmental interests to allay those concerns, and to explore their thoughts about how the water should be managed once it had been stored, in the reservoir. He said the management process the project had developed would include local communities and Native American groups. And he added that the Sites Reservoir will have “statewide reach” by helping recharge depleted aquifers throughout California — an urgent necessity once the state’s new groundwater management requirements go into effect in 2020. “Three years ago, the concept of a local agency taking on such a project, that had been on the board since the 1950s, seemed pretty remote,” he said. “We have now become the state’s lead agency for complying with environmental requirements. “We’ve come a long way … we’re starting to put the pieces together,” he added with evident pride. Likewise, Erin Curtis of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation told Breitbart News, “There is a lot of momentum for the project right now. “And obviously,” she added, “for any project in California, especially related to water, there’s going to be some discussions with environmental organizations and local landowners, but it did get Proposition 1 funding.” Curtis described the value of the project in terms environmentalists might understand: given that the state’s climate is changing, and becoming warmer, that means more of California’s annual precipitation is falling as rain, rather than snow. Without that frozen, natural reservoir, the system must build new capacity to store water — or else it will be lost, not just to industry and agriculture, but to environmental and recreational users as well. “We have been getting less and less water in the form of snowpack, which means less storage — we get more rain, so we can’t store it.” Sites, she said, provides “another place to put that water.” Critics, however, say that state authorities allocated just enough money to the project to make it appear as if they are spending money on water storage, while not quite enough to allow the reservoir to be built. McClintock is among the skeptics. He told Breitbart News that he has been hearing talk about the Sites Reservoir for decades, and that Californians are constantly told that construction is imminent. But somehow, that reservoir, and others, are never built. He blamed the state and federal environmental laws and regulations that make dams more difficult, and more expensive, to build. “Until we change the environmental laws, construction is cost prohibitive,” he told me. That would be perfectly fine with many environmental groups, for whom opposition to dams has become something of an article of faith over the past several decades. Dams were once thought to provide an environmentally-friendly source of renewable energy, through hydroelectric power. But they destroy whatever habitat finds itself submerged by reservoirs; impede fish migration; and — if managed poorly — create new hazards, such as mechanical failure. McClintock dismissesdconcerns about Oroville. “No dam, no work of man is perfect,” he said. “We make mistakes, we learn, we go forward.” That is, dam projects would go forward — if there were the political will to build them. The lack of will has less to do with engineering challenges, he maintains, than it does with politics, bureaucracy, and lawsuits by radical environmentalist groups. Environmentalists have made no secret of their opposition to the Sites Reservoir. The Sierra Club has cast the project as a fatal threat to the Sacramento River, declaring: The Sites Reservoir would be filled by significant water diversions from the Sacramento River, which could harm the river’s dynamic flow-based ecosystems. More than 20,000 acres of federal and state public lands along the river that were acquired to protect and restore the river’s riparian and aquatic habitats, could be degraded by the diversions. In addition to reducing flows in the Sacramento River, the reservoir would drown up to 15,000 acres of existing oak woodlands, grasslands, wetlands, and agricultural land in the western Sacramento Valley. Impacts associated with the reservoir footprint would harm the federally protected bald eagle, a host of other sensitive wildlife species, several rare plants, and significant historical and cultural resources. The Sites Project Authority, a consortium of water districts and local governments, claim that the reservoir could store up to 1.8 million acre feet of water (making it the seventh largest reservoir in the state) and reliably yield about a half million acre feet of water annually for communities, farms, and the environment. But this yield estimate fails to adequately consider the effects of climate change, chronic drought, and reservoir evaporation on project storage and deliveries. …

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Brats do not endear themselves. Even when insulated from children, we nevertheless encounter our fair share of adults whom we suspect got their own way too much of the time as kids. The recent behaviour of some Conservative MPs could be a case in point. The foot-stamping of fanatical Brexiteers, unable to reconcile what they wish for with reality, is not unlike that of a child screaming their insistence that they won’t wear a coat even though it’s 2C outside. It’s not hard to imagine that they were rarely told no when they were young. Or that the finality of the word was seldom made concrete to them. They have become grandiose and overindulged, and we’re collectively suffering the consequences of their tantrum. 'We shout at and smack our children: how can we stop?' Read more During my 20s, child-free and sanctimonious, I did not suffer brats gladly. I knew many. Adults too entitled to think about the needs of others. Children who just needed “a good clip round the ear” to make them step back in line. Back then I didn’t think smacking was wrong: my parents smacked me as a child. I believed the practice had been demonised by white middle-class people who thought they knew better. Numerous conversations on the subject with my white partner ended in the same way. I’d maintain that smacking was a sort of cultural expression. It was, I’d say, a practice permissible in many working-class immigrant cultures yet now policed by a society that disparaged them. Harrumphing in a manner not dissimilar to the political-correctness-gone-mad brigade, I’d sometimes say smacking was actually a sign of my parents’ love for me. Some of my harshest punishments came about because, all too aware of our society’s inherent racism, they did love me and wanted me to do and be better in an environment that stacked the odds against me. I believed this was the right strategy because they did. No wonder, then, that I felt personally affronted by bratty children. Kids cossetted in a way that I thought black working-class children weren’t allowed to be. They could be wayward while we always had to yield to the will of our parents. My feelings of regret were like those of a perpetrator saying they were sorry after physically abusing a partner And then, I had my own children. With the power now vested in me by the tiny person who called me Mummy, I found myself sickened after those moments when frustration and sleeplessness spilled over into shouting. I’d see my son look at me with something near terror and I’d be stunned into remembering what it had sometimes felt like to be smacked by my parents. That at times, I had felt hated. That I was bad. That the badness was something to be exorcised through pain. Or the reverse, that goodness could be smacked into me. After all, as the Bible says, spare the rod and spoil the child. Around this time, I picked up bell hook’s All About Love. She writes about the voicelessness of children, of how “in our culture the private family dwelling is the one institutionalised sphere of power that can easily be autocratic and fascistic”. She recounts a discussion with “mostly educated, well-paid professionals”, a multigenerational, multiracial group of people, describing them all as broadly in favour of smacking. One young mother, hooks recalls, brags to the gathering about how “she did not hit her small son but instead would ‘clamp down on his flesh, pinching him until he got the message’”. It is then that hooks comments: “Had we all been listening to a man tell us that every time his wife or girlfriend does something he does not like he just clamps down on her flesh, pinching her as hard as he can, everyone would have been appalled.” On reading those words I came to understand that my own feelings of regret after losing my temper were like those of a perpetrator after physically abusing a partner. I indulged the idea that this was something my child had forced me to do in spite of myself. I’m familiar with these justifications for abuse; to see them play out in me was frightening. Smacking is a bridge I have chosen not to cross, and that decision has led me to consider the other forms of coercion exercised over children; the pinches, too-tight grips or verbal shaming. They are too often disciplined because parents don’t want to be perceived as weak-willed and indulgent. We do it so we are seen to be doing it, not always in order to benefit our children. This is a kind of machismo, an invocation of hierarchy for hierarchy’s sake. A demand for obedience and compliance, in the guise of showing respect, becomes instead a way of displaying power. I want to teach my children that their will needs to be respected as much as mine. It’s the least I can do. • Lola Okolosie is an English teacher

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2019_1_test.csv

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Almost two dozen Democratic candidates are vying for the party's nomination to be the one to take on Donald Trump in the 2020 race for the White House, setting the stage for the most crowded and fiercely competitive Democratic primaries in decades. Insurgent progressives, established moderates and everyone in between will be presenting their visions for America's post-Trump future. Here's where they stand on some of the most pressing issues of the era

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

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The late-December tweet from @RealDonaldTrump was brief and absurd: “Farm Bill signing in 15 minutes! #Emmys #TBT.” It was accompanied by a clip from the 2005 Emmy awards in which the future leader of the free world, wearing a straw hat and overalls, sings the “Green Acres” theme song with actress Megan Mullally. The internet responded with predictable shock, tinged with mockery. But there was also a hint of excitement, maybe even relief: Had Trump gotten his Twitter mojo back? That tweet felt like an exception to one of the biggest surprises in American politics this year. Donald J. Trump – the man who redefined the possibilities of social media, singlehandedly turning a chatty platform into a must-read political assault weapon — has become bad at Twitter. Story Continued Below You wouldn’t know this from news coverage, since reporters still count on the occasional shocking Trump tweet to drive the news cycle, and he occasionally obliges. (He changed US Syria policy in one tweet, and used another to bump Defense Secretary James Mattis out of office early.) His tendency to govern by tweet has also shifted other politicians’ behavior, making the formerly staid back-room business of D.C. feel like an online free-for-all. But if you still think of Trump as the tweeter-in-chief, master of the pithy insult and well-placed exclamation point, just visit his feed. The crisp, unpredictable tweets from the start of his presidency have largely become rambling and verbose. His account is weirdly turgid, loaded with ponderous attacks on his perceived enemies and obscure multi-part arguments about his legal situation. At other times, it veers as close as Trump has ever sounded to Washingtonesque. In case you haven’t been reading faithfully, a typical Trump tweet, circa late 2018, reads something like this: Or this: While the disgusting Fake News is doing everything within their power not to report it that way, at least 3 major players are intimating that the Angry Mueller Gang of Dems is viciously telling witnesses to lie about facts & they will get relief. This is our Joseph McCarthy Era! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2018 Note the defensive posture, the multiple messages jumbled into one, the catchphrases breathlessly piled atop one another. This Trump sounds more like a kid trying to talk his way out of detention than the communications savant who took over the 2016 campaign 140 characters at a time. That talent isn’t totally gone. The president still manages the occasional Trumpian turn of phrase (on December 7, he called Rex Tillerson “dumb as a rock”) and he can still use Twitter as a potent weapon to redirect public attention. Indeed, in the days surrounding Trump’s Worst Week Ever — the resignation of his defense secretary, a plunging stock market, a looming government shutdown, ominous advances in the Mueller investigation — the president’s feed was stocked with diversions. He posted a rendering of a “Steel Slat Barrier” border wall, in the Modern King’s Landing aesthetic. He delivered one-liners designed to send his foes into paroxysms of fact-checking and fury. (“I’ve done more damage to ISIS than all recent presidents…not even close!”) Not long ago, that was just a typical week for Trump. Now it’s the exception. The rambling tweets have returned with a vengeance, and the clutter-to-clarity ratio is rising every day. This change isn’t just a curiosity: Twitter has always seemed a direct wire into the president’s brain. So if his tweets are descending into unintelligible self-absorption, what does that say about his frame of mind? IT’S NOT MUCH of an overstatement to say that Trump wouldn’t be president without that Twitter feed. Around the midpoint of the campaign — when the idea began to wedge, in the dark shadows of people’s minds, that his candidacy wasn’t just an oddball piece of performance art but a viable, growing force — his ability to hijack the national conversation on Twitter, over and over, proved that he had nailed something essential about modern-day political communications. Voters hunger for authenticity, a quality increasingly hard to project in the era of the press release, the 24-hour cable show, and the massive political consultancy class. Washington’s standard media dance had become the opposite of spontaneous. The rules of expression were clear: Whatever swearing or ranting or touchdown dancing you might do behind closed doors, your official communication downplayed conflict, respected opponents, bent over to give credit wherever it was due, and ensured that every word was committee-drafted and vetted to the hilt. Candidates’ social-media accounts followed largely the same rules, leading to a lot of supremely dull Twitter accounts. Trump’s media skills were forged in the far-less-polite confines of the New York Post’s Page 6, and he was different from the start. The man who became nationally famous by saying “You’re fired” understood the power of a direct personal attack, and the value of a slogan that could be boiled down to fit on a hat. Throughout his candidacy and well into his presidency, he wielded Twitter in just that way. It was easy to track his movements and mood though his spurts of Twitter activity; we learned he was an obsessive viewer of “Fox and Friends” due to his tendency to tweet the contents in real time. And like a standup comic testing material, he used Twitter to launch and deploy his catchphrases: Fake News, No Collusion, Rigged Witch Hunt. The sheer volume of Trump’s tweets, though — at this point his account has logged some 40,000 posts — began to make each one less essential. As it was early in his Twitter career, filler is abundant. He recommends a lot of books, many of them by Fox News personalities. For a stretch leading up to the midterms, he used his feed almost exclusively to name-check Republican candidates; nearly every tweet felt perfunctory. And as he has grown busier with the work of public office, the voice of the press release has crept in. He uses his feed for milquetoast updates on official business: Statement from China: “The teams of both sides are now having smooth communications and good cooperation with each other. We are full of confidence that an agreement can be reached within the next 90 days.” I agree! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018 He offers quasi-presidential responses to disasters, holding hands with Democratic opponents after the California wildfires: Thank you @JerryBrownGov. Look forward to joining you and @GavinNewsom tomorrow in California. We are with you! https://t.co/UuXWAadmov — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2018 And he has begun to post stilted video messages, which feature him standing on the White House grounds or in front of a backdrop of flags. They feel a bit like hostage videos: a deadness in the eyes, an absence of joy. Let’s not do a shutdown, Democrats - do what’s right for the American People! pic.twitter.com/bZg07ZKQqo — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018 PART OF THE BLAME lies with Twitter itself. If you want to pinpoint the arrival of Boring Trump Twitter, it might trace back to November 7, 2017, the day the platform doubled the maximum length of a tweet from 140 to 280 characters. Trump busted out of his 140-character box the very next day, with a run-on sentence about his trip to Asia: Getting ready to make a major speech to the National Assembly here in South Korea, then will be headed to China where I very much look forward to meeting with President Xi who is just off his great political victory. The new character limit meant that his official press-release tweets could get longer. But, as it turns out, he has largely used the extra space to air out the most essential part of his political personality: His defensiveness. Since before he became president, Twitter was the place where Trump ranted about the woes visited upon him; “NO COLLUSION” was his version of opening the window and unleashing a primal scream. But freed from the useful confines of brevity, Trump’s rhetoric has become notably flabby. He embraced the multi-part Twitter thread, if not its standard conventions. (He doesn’t number his tweets or declare that a thread is coming; he just uses copious ellipses to indicate he hasn’t finished yet.) His tweets began to feel like painfully faithful transcriptions of his thought process. And those could be especially difficult to follow. Robert Mueller and Leakin’ Lyin’ James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest. And bye the way, wasn’t the woman in charge of prosecuting Jerome Corsi (who I do not know) in charge of “legal” at the corrupt Clinton Foundation? A total Witch Hunt... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018 ....Will Robert Mueller’s big time conflicts of interest be listed at the top of his Republicans only Report. Will Andrew Weissman’s horrible and vicious prosecutorial past be listed in the Report. He wrongly destroyed people’s lives, took down great companies, only to be........ — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018 .....overturned, 9-0, in the United States Supreme Court. Doing same thing to people now. Will all of the substantial & many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report. Will the people that worked for the Clinton.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018 ....Foundation be listed at the top of the Report? Will the scathing document written about Lyin’ James Comey, by the man in charge of the case, Rod Rosenstein (who also signed the FISA Warrant), be a big part of the Report? Isn’t Rod therefore totally conflicted? Will all of.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018 ...the lying and leaking by the people doing the Report, & also Bruce Ohr (and his lovely wife Molly), Comey, Brennan, Clapper, & all of the many fired people of the FBI, be listed in the Report? Will the corruption within the DNC & Clinton Campaign be exposed?..And so much more! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018 Trump is not the only person to overuse Twitter, or to let a reflexive tweeting habit deepen into what feels more like an addiction. One reason the platform has become so exhausting is that Twitter has become our prime medium for beating a dead horse in public: too many people tweeting, on a daily or hourly basis, variations on the same theme. You could boil post-2016 political Twitter down to four basic sentiments: “Trump is terrible,” “Trump is great,” “Liberals are losers,” and “We are all doomed.” Indeed, since Twitter itself is now so focused on Trump—as is cable news, one of the president’s chief sources of information about the world —it stands to reason that Trump’s own set of references would become circular and self-obsessed. The result doesn’t look healthy. His feed by now is clogged with tweets piled on tweets, rambling rants; he’s a guy standing on the street corner whose constant patter you can’t ignore, but you can’t actually follow, either. For the close reader, the only enjoyment left is in the form—what is he going to misspell or capitalize this time?—and the parlor game of wondering where, amid the noise, he might drop a hiring or firing or, gift of gifts, some surreal old video clip. In the meantime, new masters are moving in, taking lessons or inspiration from the old Trump feed and using it, in some cases, for opposite ends. Incoming U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, wields social media much like the president used to do. Her voice is different; she’s more literate, partial to lists and punchlines. But she, too, trolls her opponents, tosses hashtags, takes on a snarkily human tone, and isn’t afraid to occasionally play a little fast with the facts in service of a larger rhetorical point. And, unlike Trump, she has figured out Instagram. Her ascendancy throws what Trump’s Twitter feed has lost into stark relief. He used to tweet like a 29-year-old, newly flush with power. Now, he’s tweeting like a 72-year-old who doesn’t want to lose it. It could be that relentlessness of the attacks on Trump are taking a toll on his psyche. It could be that the profound isolation of the American presidency is making him a little batty. Whatever it is, he remains in the West Wing with jittery thumbs, baring his thoughts to the world in real time—giving us all a window into the shrinking, repetitive outlook of the man with the world’s most powerful job. Joanna Weiss is editor of Experience magazine. Joanna Weiss is a Boston-based journalist and the editor of Experience, an upcoming magazine published by Northeastern University. This article tagged under: Twitter Donald Trump

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The lapse is sure to drag on for at least a dozen days, and likely far longer, since the Senate has shut its doors until Wednesday afternoon. | Win McNamee/Getty Images) Government Shutdown How the shutdown is reaching a breaking point Many of the departments and agencies hit by the partial shutdown are running out of carryover cash and time to prep checks for the midmonth pay period. Nine federal departments haven’t received a cent in federal funding in more than a week. They’ve limped along on leftover money, coasted through the quiet days of the holidays and paid staff with checks already prepped before the lapse. Story Continued Below But all that’s about to end. Many of the departments and agencies hit by the partial shutdown, which began Dec. 22, have reached a breaking point in their ability to go on with minimal disruption. They are running out of carryover cash and time to prep checks for the midmonth pay period. In a very visible sign of the growing impact of the shutdown showdown, 19 Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo will close to the public on Wednesday, their temporary funds exhausted. While paychecks for federal employees went out Friday after a pay period ended on Dec. 22, workers are left wondering whether they will get their next check on Jan. 11. The pay period for that next check ends on Jan. 5. Pay processing varies from agency to agency. The Office of Management and Budget said in recent guidance that no federal employee — including those still working without pay — can be compensated for the pay period spanning Dec. 23 to Jan. 5 until the shutdown ends. Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. House Democrats plan to vote on two proposals when they take control Thursday. One would fund the Department of Homeland Security until Feb. 8, maintaining border wall funding at existing levels, or $1.3 billion. A second proposal would fund other closed agencies — such as Transportation, Commerce and Agriculture — for the rest of the fiscal year through Sept. 30. But Senate Republicans aren’t likely to accept that plan. The upper chamber has shut its doors until Wednesday afternoon and neither party has shown any signs of compromise in the fight over funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall. Bracing for a prolonged period without appropriations for much of the federal government, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has directed several District offices to stay open longer to receive the hundreds of unemployment claims rolling in. Amid that uncertainty, Trump issued an executive order on Friday freezing salaries for civilian employees in 2019 — halting a 2.1 percent raise that was scheduled to take effect in January. Congress, however, could include a pay raise in a spending package to break the budget impasse. The Office of Personnel Management has provided sample letters federal employees can give to landlords, mortgage companies and creditors to explain late payments. The departments of Agriculture, Justice, Treasury, Commerce, Interior, State, Transportation, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development as well as agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the Internal Revenue Service are all hit by the partial shutdown. How it gets harder: — Agriculture assistance: USDA offices that offer loans to farmers were able to stay open for the first six days of the shutdown by using leftover funding. But offices across the country will now close. Starting Jan. 1, USDA won’t be able to issue new loans for rural development or grants for housing, community facilities and utility companies. Payments will stop being processed for agricultural research and education projects. Statistics routinely published on commodity and livestock production, as well as economic projections, will cease. And U.S. Forest Service work to prevent wildfires will halt, along with staffing for ranger stations and other facilities at the agency’s public recreation sites. Farmers affected by retaliatory tariffs will now have to wait until after the shutdown to receive aid if they have yet to apply for that relief. — Coast Guard: The shutdown has begun to curtail Coast Guard efforts like mariner licensing, boating safety checks and patrolling to ensure fishing laws are enforced. Maintenance for navigational aids is also delayed, as well as training and ship maintenance. “The longer the shutdown lasts, the more difficult it will become for the Coast Guard to maintain mission readiness,” said Coast Guard spokesman Chad Saylor. The Trump administration announced a change in policy late Friday, however, ensuring active duty members of the Coast Guard will be paid on Dec. 31. But checks are not guaranteed for those workers on the service’s Jan. 15 payday. — DHS investigations: While the majority of workers at DHS are kept on during shutdowns, only about a third of the nearly 800 employees in the inspector general’s office are slated to stay on the job. That means far less support staff as the internal watchdog investigates incidents like the deaths of two migrant children in DHS custody in December. A department official who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity said those furloughed workers are needed to round up records and interview witnesses to prevent “the investigative trail” from “going stale.” — The Smithsonian: Nineteen Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo will close to the public on Wednesday, adding thousands more workers to the pool of furloughed federal employees. The shutdown also means that live camera feeds used by the public to watch giant pandas and other animals from afar will go dark. — Tax filing season: The extended lapse comes at a particularly awkward time for the IRS, which will likely have to redo its shutdown plan this week to prepare for the upcoming filing season — the first in which both taxpayers and the agency will need to navigate the changes from the tax law Republicans enacted a year ago. Top agency officials predicted even before the shutdown started that the start of the filing season could slip into February, after starting in mid-to-late January in recent years. About seven in eight IRS employees are currently furloughed. But Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said last week that the agency would have to call many more workers back, without pay, for filing season. — EPA: The Environmental Protection Agency, which had enough extra money to operate as usual through the first week of the funding lapse, has advised agency employees that shutdown procedures will start Monday. — FAA training: The union that represents air traffic controllers complained this week that delays at the Federal Aviation Administration’s training academy are about to exacerbate the yearslong backlog in bringing on new hires in a field that is already plagued with staffing shortages. — Launching IPOs: The longer the shutdown goes, the harder it will be on companies planning to launch initial public offerings. The Securities and Exchange Commission says it has a limited number of workers available solely for emergency situations involving market integrity and investor protection, so companies planning to launch IPOs will have to wait until after the shutdown is over, potentially causing their agency filings to go stale in the meantime and making them miss a window for offering their first stock sales. — Justice system: Federal courts are expected to be able to operate only through Jan. 11 by tapping into court fees and other funds not subject to annual appropriations. If the shutdown drags on past that date, each court and federal defender’s office is allowed to determine the staffing resources necessary to support ongoing work. Catherine Boudreau, Ted Hesson, Doug Palmer, Tanya Snyder, Jacqueline Klimas, Patrick Temple-West and Rebecca Rainey contributed to this report.

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The New Year’s Eve stabbing of three people, including a police officer, at Victoria Station in Manchester, U.K., is being treated as a terrorist incident, police said. Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said Tuesday two people suffered very serious injuries in the attack. A woman in her 50s was taken to a local hospital with injuries to her face and abdomen, police said. A man, also in his 50s, suffered injuries to his abdomen. A police sergeant who was stabbed in the shoulder has been released from the hospital. Hopkins said the police investigation is continuing. He praised the “bravery” of four police officers who subdued the suspect at the train station. The suspect has been arrested but not yet charged or identified. Sky News reported the suspect was a 25-year-old man. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP An eyewitness said he was chanting Islamic slogans during the stabbings. Two knives were recovered at the scene and a residence in Cheetham Hill was being searched, the BBC reported. The train station has been reopened following the stabbings. British Prime Minister Theresa May tweeted her condolences to those affected by the attack. “My thoughts are with those who were injured in the suspected terrorist attack in Manchester last night,” she tweeted. “I thank the emergency services for their courageous response.” Sam Clack, a producer who works for the BBC, was on the platform when the attack occurred. He described the attack before police arrived at the scene. "I just heard this most blood-curdling scream and looked down the platform,” he said. "What it looked like was a guy in his 60s with a woman of similar age and another guy all dressed in black. It looked like they were having a fight, but she was screaming in this blood-curdling way. I saw police ... come towards him. He came towards me. I looked down and saw he had a kitchen knife with a black handle with a good, 12-inch blade. It was just fear, pure fear." KNIFE ATTACK AT MANCHESTER’S VICTORIA STATION WOUNDS 3, INCLUDING POLICE OFFICER Clack said police officers deployed a Taser and pepper spray before "six or seven" officers collared the suspect. Victoria Station is steps away from the Manchester Arena, where 22 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up as fans were leaving an Ariana Grande concert. Fox News’ Samuel Chamberlain and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Rep. Maxine Waters has proposed creating a subcommittee focused on diversity and inclusion. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images Congress House Democrats to push for more diversity in top corporate ranks California Democrat Maxine Waters, the first woman and first African-American to chair the House Financial Services Committee, is planning to use her new power to push for more women and minorities in the top ranks of corporate America. Some firms are panicking at the prospect of new public scrutiny, according to lobbyists, who say that while companies won’t openly fight Democrats' moves to promote diversity, many are uneasy about the prospect of government getting directly involved in their hiring decisions. Story Continued Below Lawmakers say they’re hoping to make them uncomfortable. “They have a right to be nervous,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), a member of the financial services panel. “They should feel the fire is getting started and will burn, at least for two years, and hopefully beyond." Lobbyists privately admit that some firms have been slow to improve and that nudging from Congress may be what’s needed to force them to act. Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. Corporations and industry groups have already sought to make inroads with lawmakers who will highlight the issue on Capitol Hill, according to lawmakers and lobbyists. Some, including Amazon and the Bank Policy Institute, have even recently hired staff from the Congressional Black Caucus to build relationships as Democrats take over. One financial industry source who previously worked for a Democratic member said: “Very, very few have been ahead of the game” when it comes to improving diversity. "Now companies are focused like a laser on identifying top African-American talent with Congressional Black Caucus relationships to help them understand and mitigate the striking lack of diversity within their corporations,” the person said. Waters has proposed creating a subcommittee focused on diversity and inclusion. Senior members of her committee are preparing to introduce bills to force companies to disclose the gender and racial makeup of their boards. That’s just one example of how Democrats taking charge of the House are expected to bring new pressure on companies from Wall Street to Silicon Valley to diversify their leadership. “Sometimes it’s the right time,” said Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who wants to chair the proposed financial services diversity subcommittee. “When you look at this Congress that we have, it is without a doubt the most diverse in history." Cleaver said he’s already being lobbied on the topic. "I was with some lobbyists last night telling me how their company is nervous about diversity,” he said in December. "My comment to them was, Hey, look, were you nervous a year ago, or two years ago, or are you nervous only because we're going to call you out?” Cleaver said Wells Fargo was among the firms trying to connect with him on the issue. The bank declined to comment. The Congressional Black Caucus has started an initiative to increase diversity in the tech industry as well, and Waters has been part of it. She and black caucus members have traveled to Silicon Valley to meet with tech executives, including the CEOs of Airbnb and Twitter. A 2017 Government Accountability Office report commissioned by Waters, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) found that overall representation of minorities in management positions of the financial services industry increased to 21 percent in 2015 from 17 percent in 2007 but that it decreased for African-Americans and was generally unchanged for women. Another study by Deloitte and the Alliance for Board Diversity found that in 2016 white men held 69 percent of the board seats at Fortune 500 companies. White women held 16 percent, minority men held 11 percent and minority women 4 percent. "While there have been some gains, they have been negligible at best and certainly not representative of the broad demographic changes we have seen in the United States in the same period of time,” the authors of the report said. Waters has said promoting diversity in financial services is one of the top priorities on her consumer-focused agenda. She has also warned that financial regulatory agencies are also “seriously challenged” when it comes to the issue. “Having a subcommittee that’s dedicated to making sure that financial services is representative of the United States is really important," said Rawan Elhalaby of the Greenlining Institute, a California-based advocacy group focused on racial and economic justice. "Thus far we’ve seen the industry is really missing the mark on serving communities of color, and we think that’s partly because of the misrepresentation at the top." Senior Democrats on the Financial Services Committee are preparing to introduce bills designed to push corporate America to act. Some of the proposals have already sparked opposition from conservative activists. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who will likely chair an influential subcommittee overseeing markets and the Securities and Exchange Commission, plans to reintroduce legislation that would require public companies to disclose the gender composition of their boards. The measure would also require the SEC to set up an advisory group on gender diversity. "Companies perform better when they have more diverse boards that include women," Maloney said in a statement to POLITICO. Rep. Gregory Meeks, another New York Democrat who will also likely chair a subcommittee with oversight of banks and their regulators, has legislation that would require public companies to disclose to investors the gender, race and ethnicity of their board members. It’s a concept that’s been backed by the managers of several public investment funds, who have argued that SEC disclosure requirements have failed to produce enough information needed to determine the racial and ethnic diversity of boards. Meeks said he has started talking to companies, and financial trade associations have begun reaching out to him. “Some [companies] acknowledge it’s good for business," Meeks said. "I’m not asking them to do anything that’s bad for business. This will help attract more folks to their institutions." To be sure, some companies, such as Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, are ready to tout the progress they've made. Bank of America's 16-member board includes five women and three people of color. Wells Fargo's board chair is Betsy Duke, a former Federal Reserve official. Citigroup this year announced targets to increase representation of women and Africa-Americans in management roles. Paul Thornell, a senior lobbyist at Citigroup, said he expected from Congress "a mostly friendly and polite, but sometimes a little tough" nudge at industry and government to accelerate diversity efforts. "We need to look at it as an opportunity to thoughtfully and credibly engage rather than running away from it," he said. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it is open to some of the legislative proposals. The Chamber has already endorsed Maloney’s gender diversity bill, which the conservative Americans for Tax Reform described as "nothing more than an attempt to open the door for government involvement in the social responsibility of private enterprise." The Chamber is weighing Meeks’ proposal, as well, even as it pushes to fend off corporate disclosure requirements in other areas. “Sometimes change can be a little uncomfortable,” said Tom Quaadman, the executive vice president of the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. “But when we come out on the other side of this, the business community’s going to be stronger for it."

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Lawmakers and former national security officials say Dmitry Rogozin's invitation undermines U.S. sanctions and would give a government-approved platform to an anti-American bigot. | Maxim Shemetov/AFP/Getty Images Foreign policy 'Wow': NASA startles with invitation to sanctioned Russian Dmitry Rogozin is no typical rocket-science technocrat. He is an ultranationalist politician with a record of stark racism and homophobia who is under American sanctions. A Trump administration official’s plan to host a sanctioned Russian nationalist in the U.S. in the coming months is raising alarms among Russia hawks in Washington. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine extended an October invitation for his counterpart, Dmitry Rogozin, to visit NASA headquarters in Houston in early 2019. U.S.-Russia space cooperation is nothing new. But Rogozin is no typical rocket-science technocrat. He is an ultranationalist politician with a record of stark racism and homophobia who is under American sanctions, which typically bar him from entering the U.S. over his 2014 role, as deputy prime minister, in Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Story Continued Below Bridenstine, a former three-term Republican congressman from Oklahoma, told the Russian state news agency TASS in mid-October that he had succeeded in temporarily waiving sanctions on Rogozin so that he could visit Houston and speak at Rice University, Bridenstine’s alma mater, sometime after the new year. The U.S. and Russia cooperate extensively on space exploration and, according to the TASS report, Bridenstine stressed the need for a “strong working relationship” with his counterpart. Yet lawmakers from both parties and former national security officials are crying foul, saying the invitation undermines U.S. sanctions and would give a government-approved platform to an anti-American bigot. POLITICO Space POLITICO’s weekly must-read briefing on the second space age. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. “It absolutely sends the wrong message to lift sanctions, even temporarily, for the purpose of inviting him to speak to students at one of our nation’s premier universities,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a leader of the committee’s investigation into 2016 Russian election interference. "This is appalling," said Evelyn Farkas, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the Obama administration. “It’s utterly inappropriate given who he is and the fact that he is on our sanctions list.” More than two months after Bridenstine’s original invitation, however, the details remain sparse. A Dec. 7 TASS report said that Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, is planning for Rogozin to visit in “early 2019,” but neither the U.S. nor Russia has announced a specific date. The Russian embassy declined to comment on the proposed visit, and NASA spokeswoman Megan Powers said only, “Planning for a potential visit by the Director-General is still underway.” In an email, Powers also defended Bridenstine’s invitation. “The U.S. / Russian relationship in space dates back to the 1970s,” she wrote. “NASA has historically invited the head of the Russian space agency to visit the United States. Following this precedent, and Administrator Bridenstine’s October visit to Russia to participate in crew launch activities to the International Space Station, NASA invited the Director-General of Roscosmos to visit NASA facilities in the United States and discuss our ongoing space-related cooperation.” While the plan’s murkiness may reflect the delicate politics of a sanctioned Russian politician visiting the U.S. amid a huge investigation into Kremlin election interference, some Russia experts and space policy agreed with NASA’s stance. They described the invitation as a natural extension of U.S.-Russia cooperation on space, an area that both countries have worked to insulate from mounting tensions in other parts of their bilateral relationship. "The partnership on the space station has persisted despite all these problems, and worked very well,” said John Logsdon, an emeritus professor at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute. “I think this invitation reflects the ongoing success of the partnership, rather than any broader political tensions." Logsdon pointed out that Bridenstine spoke last year at Moscow State University, making the Rice invitation reciprocal. But Rogozin’s visit would be only the second time the U.S. is known to have waived sanctions to allow Russian officials to enter the country. In January, three top Russian intelligence officials secretly visited the U.S. to confer with their American counterparts. One of them, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service or SVR, has been subject to U.S. sanctions, which bar entry to the United States, since 2014. News of Naryshkin’s visit sparked controversy at the time, with critics saying the decision undermined Western sanctions meant to deter Russian aggression. Trump administration officials argued it was necessary for counterterrorism cooperation. Several factors make Rogozin’s invitation, which has received little attention in the U.S., potentially more controversial. For one, there is no apparent pressing national security reason for the Russian space chief to visit the United States. A senior Obama administration official said that during that administration, if U.S. officials needed to meet with their sanctioned Moscow counterparts, they would do so in third countries, rather than waive sanctions to let the sanctioned Russians into the U.S. And an invitation to speak at a prestigious American university is an honor that the government has not bestowed on other officials it has sanctioned. The invitation to speak at Rice is even more striking in light of Rogozin’s history as a provocative anti-American ultranationalist. After co-founding the Rodina coalition in 2003, Rogozin got the party banned from regional elections in Moscow two years later over ads that compared migrants from the north Caucasus region to “garbage.” Earlier that year, several Rodina members of parliament signed a petition calling for Jewish organizations to be banned from Russia, an initiative that Rogozin disavowed. “Wow,” said Heather Conley, a Russia expert and director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, in response to the invitation. “Rogozin is well known for his very destructive public comments about the U.S. What is difficult for me to understand is what is to be gained for giving a sanctioned individual a public platform." A spokesman for Rice, Doug Miller, referred questions to NASA. “Rice has not invited Rogozin to the campus,” Miller said. “I don’t know what NASA is working on. … As far as we know, there’s no plan for Rogozin to visit Rice if he visits Houston.” Bridenstine, whom Trump tapped to run NASA last September, has sought to highlight his rapport with Rogozin. He met with the Roscosmos chief in Moscow in mid-October, and tweeted a video in which he called U.S.-Russia space collaboration “a charge we have to keep.” Russia experts say that Rogozin’s party, Rodina, was part of a Kremlin strategy of so-called controlled opposition, which encourages extremist opposition parties to create foils for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party and to float controversial ideas to see how they play with the Russian public. In 2008, Rogozin made his alliance with Putin official, accepting a post as Russia’s ambassador to NATO, where he hung a portrait of Joseph Stalin in his office and made a point of thumbing the eye of the Western alliance. “The Americans and their allies again want to surround the den of the Russian bear?” he tweeted in 2010, in response to U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile system to Romania. “The bear will emerge, and kick them in the ass.” In 2011, Rogozin became deputy prime minister in charge of overseeing the Russian defense ministry, including its cyber warfare operations, which in recent years have frequently targeted the U.S. and its allies. In March 2014, he was one of seven senior Russian officials sanctioned by the Obama administration for their roles in the annexation of Crimea. A year later, Rogozin tweeted that the West would “fall under the weight of Islamic State and gays” rather than from Russian aggression, according to Agence France-Presse. Rogozin also has at least one connection to the Kremlin’s efforts to subvert American politics. In December 2015, he met with a delegation of National Rifle Association officials invited to Russia by Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty in December to conspiring with a different Kremlin official to infiltrate the U.S. political system. In May, Putin appointed him to head Roscosmos, something of a demotion for Rogozin, who had overseen the space agency in his previous post as deputy prime minister. Putin’s decision to put a notorious sanctioned official in charge of his space program also seemed designed to undermine sanctions, because the U.S. — as Rogozin is fond of pointing out — depends on Russian spacecraft to reach the international space station. The Trump administration’s invitation to Rogozin appears to vindicate Putin’s approach. Meanwhile, Rogozin continues to needle the United States, making headlines last month for joking that Russia would verify NASA’s moon landings actually occurred. In response to questions about the invitation, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee’s subpanel on space — said it exemplified the problems posed by NASA’s reliance on Roscosmos. “Sen. Cruz believes that questions like these highlight the complications posed by the U.S. being completely dependent on Russia for transportation to and from low Earth orbit, as we unfortunately have been for the last seven years,” said a spokesman for the Republican senator. “That's why it is so important, for national and economic security, that America is once again building the capacity to take U.S. astronauts to space on U.S. rockets launched from U.S. soil." Considered in a different light, the invitation makes perfect sense, according to Steven Sestanovich, a professor and Russia expert at Columbia University. “If the Trump administration went looking for a Russian partner in its own image, Dima Rogozin would be their guy. He’s charming, cynical, corrupt, utterly unprincipled, thoroughly anti-American, a pugnacious show-off,” Sestanovich said. “Honestly, how could you do better?”

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next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 Police in the English city of Manchester said Tuesday they are treating the New Year's Eve stabbing of three people as a terrorist incident. Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said two people suffered "very serious" injuries in the attack and remain in the hospital receiving treatment. A police sergeant who was stabbed in the shoulder has been released. Police have not identified or charged the suspect, who has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. An eyewitness said he shouted Islamic slogans during the frenzied attack. The incident happened at Manchester's Victoria Station shortly before 9 p.m. on New Year's Eve. The busy rail station is next to the Manchester Arena, where a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017. Police tried to reassure the public that the area is safe despite the attack on a night of celebration. "I know that the events of last night will have affected many people and caused concern," Hopkins said. "That the incident happened so close to the scene of the terrorist attack on 22 May, 2017, makes it even more dreadful." Prime Minister Theresa May expressed concern for the victims and thanked first responders for their "courageous response." Police say there is no indication that any others were involved in planning or assisting the attack. The investigation is being led by Britain's counterterrorism police. Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said the incident is "not ongoing" and there is "currently no intelligence to suggest that there is any wider threat." Police say extra officers will be on the streets Tuesday as a precaution. Britain's official threat level has long been set at "severe," indicating intelligence analysts believe an attack is highly likely.

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A man ploughed his car into a crowd of people in western Germany early Tuesday, injuring at least four in what appears to have been an intentional attack against foreigners, authorities said. The 50-year-old driver of a silver Mercedes first attempted to hit a group of people in the city of Bottrop shortly after midnight, but the pedestrians were able to jump out of the way, Muenster police said. The suspect, a German man, then drove into the center of Bottrop where he slammed his car into a crowd. Police said those hit included Syrian and Afghan citizens, and some were seriously injured. The driver then sped off toward the nearby city of Essen, where he tried and failed to hit people waiting at a bus stop before being arrested by police on suspicion of attempted homicide. The driver, whose name wasn't released, made anti-foreigner comments during his arrest and there were indications he suffered from mental illness, police said. "The man had the clear intention to kill foreigners," Herbert Reul, the top security official in North Rhine-Westphalia state, was quoted as saying by the German news agency dpa. It's not the first time that a vehicle has been used as an apparent weapon in Germany. In April, a German man drove a van into a crowd in Muenster, killing four people and injuring dozens. The driver, who had sought psychological help in the weeks preceding the attack, then killed himself. On Dec. 19, 2016, a Tunisian man ploughed a truck into a busy Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group. The driver, who fled the scene, was later killed in a shootout with police in Italy.

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Kim Jong Un says he is ready to sit down again with President Donald Trump -- but also warned the United States against imposing more sanctions. Interested in North Korea? Add North Korea as an interest to stay up to date on the latest North Korea news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest During his annual televised New Year's speech, the North Korean leader said he hopes a follow-up summit meeting will “produce an outcome welcomed by the international community.” Kim and Trump met in June in Singapore for the first time in the history of the rival countries. The Associated Press But in the 30-minute speech on New Year's Day, Kim also warned that North Korea may choose a “new path” if the United States continues to “break its promises and misjudges our patience by unilaterally demanding certain things and pushes ahead with sanctions and pressure." In the months since the historic summit, leaders from both countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have been trying to negotiate a second meeting between Trump and Kim. Both countries, however, have been at an impasse about the progress of denuclearization. Kim, meanwhile, also called for stronger ties with South Korea and announced a willingness to resume two inter-Korean cooperative projects in the North -- Kaesong Industrial park and Mount Kumgang tourist resort -- which had been halted due to strained relations. AP Neither of those are currently possible for South Korea unless sanctions on the North are removed. “Kim is hinting that if things come to worse, North Korea could go back to the economic-nuclear dual path,” Cheong Seong-chang, director of unification strategic studies program at the independent Seoul-based think tank Sejong Institute, told ABC News. The North Korean leader is also indirectly demanding his neighbors to the South push the U.S. and U.N Security Council harder to lift sanctions in exchange for the two countries to resume inter-Korean cooperative projects, Cheong said. Kim’s speech came against the backdrop of a new look with a modern setting -- a carpeted library full of books, plush leather sofa and an armchair set with a mega-sized portrait painting of his father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung hanging on the wall -- a sharp contrast to his usual stiff public speeches at a podium in front of tens of thousands people who dutifully respond with thunderous applause. “It looks like he wanted to show off” that he is ready and recharged to deal with the international community after the June summit, Cheong explained. The new look also comes in the wake of three summits -- two at the border town Panmunjom and the latest in Pyongyang -- with South Korean President Moon Jae In, Cheong added. “Up until even last year, he stood and read the New Year’s speech in a rather stiff and strong tone," Cheong said. "But this time his voice was very calm and stable. It was unprecedented.” ABC News' Hakyung Kate Lee contributed to this report.

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Mr. Li’s collection of photos from that time is a rare and nuanced portrayal of both the pain and the passion that the movement generated. At a time when cameras were scarce, he was given rare access to official events, taking more than 30,000 photos, many of which he carefully stashed under the floorboards of his home in the city of Harbin. Among those are scenes of Red Guards forcing monks at a temple to denounce Buddhist scriptures and tearing out an official’s hair because he was deemed as too closely resembling Mao. There are people shouting praises to Mao as they swim in the Songhua River. There are many images of officials and ordinary folk, some standing on chairs, some splattered with black ink, many bowing their heads, and all at the mercy of massive crowds denouncing them for supposed crimes, sentencing them to hard labor or taking them away for execution. Mr. Li’s photos first gained widespread attention abroad in 2003, when he worked with Robert Pledge, the director of Contact Press Images in New York City, to publish “Red-Color News Soldier.” Almost immediately, publishers in China began reaching out to Mr. Li, who had moved to New York to be closer to his children. Knowing that the photos had only a slim chance of receiving approval from China’s official censors, Mr. Li and his editors in China made plans for a Chinese-language version of the book that would bury the controversial photos in a sea of text. But censors rejected the nearly finished book with no explanation. Livid, Mr. Li sent letters of protest to China’s top leaders. One of his main points of contention: In 2000, Deng Xiaoping’s daughter had published a book about her father titled “Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution: A Daughter Recalls the Critical Years.”

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The arm of the U.S. military responsible for the country's nuclear strike capabilities drew widespread condemnation on New Year's Eve when it tweeted a strange message about dropping a bomb. In the tweet, which was posted as revelers around the country were preparing to ring in 2019 and was deleted three hours later, the United States Strategic Command said the nation was "ready to drop something much, much bigger" than the famous New Year's Eve bedazzled ball. A video shared as part of the tweet reportedly included footage of a B-2 stealth bomber soaring across the sky before releasing two GPS-guided bombs that exploded into a ball of fire before hitting the ground. In the background, pulsing music could be heard and the words "STEALTH," "READY" and "LETHAL" flashed across the screen in block letters, reports The New York Times. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP About a half hour after the initial tweet, the account sent out another tweet that apologized and said the first was in "poor taste." A spokesperson for the Strategic Command told the Times the post “was part of our Year in Review series meant to feature our command priorities: strategic deterrence, decisive response and combat-ready force.” “It was a repost from earlier in the year, dropping a pair of conventional Massive Ordnance Penetrators at a test range in the United States,” the spokesperson added, without elaborating further. DC, BALTIMORE DEFY NATIONAL TREND AS HOMICIDES SOAR Stratcom is one of ten unified commands in the Department of Defense that provides a range of capabilities including strategic warning, missile defense, global command and communications, and intelligence and reconnaissance. The bizarre tweet prompted a backlash from some users on social media. Still, some Twitter users didn't see a problem with the tweet. This isn't the first time a government Twitter feed has had to apologize and delete a tweet. In May of last year, the Air Force apologized and deleted a tweet that tried to link fighting against the Taliban to a viral debate on the Internet.

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Sweden is set to receive 7.5 million Swedish Kronor (738,248 euros) from the European Union for victims of “hate crimes” after the country saw a record number of fatal shootings in 2018. The programme is aimed at providing better support for those who are victims of hate crimes across the country while their cases are being investigated or prosecuted, Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports. Eva Sund, who works with hate crime cases for the National Operations Department (NOA) of the Swedish police, said the project would help support victims in various ways including how to properly file a hate crime report to the police. “The need to get aid and an explanation of why certain decisions are taken in a legal process is very very high and it takes time away from the investigating police officers if they have to sit down and give this feedback,” Sund said. Head of Social Media ‘Hate Speech’ Reporting Group Nominated for ‘Swedish Hero’ Award https://t.co/meuFKU09bC — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 6, 2018 Both the police and the Swedish Victim Support organisation, a non-profit body that champions victims’ rights, are also looking into funding the project as well which is expected to get off the ground in 2020. The EU funding comes after Sweden has seen a record number of deadly shootings across the country in 2018 linked mainly to gang violence across the country. The record number of fatal shootings has led Stockholm police expert Gunnar Appelgren to claim the country resembles a “state at war” as the number of firearms and hand grenade seizures rose in 2018 compared to the previous year, although overall shootings declined. Shootings in Sweden have been carried out with imported weapons from regions like the Balkans, where Bosnian prosecutor Goran Glamocanin said that Sweden had become one of the largest markets for weapons from the region. Hand grenades have also become easy to obtain in Sweden according to Appelgren who admitted in January 2018 that criminal gangs had broad access to the explosive weapons. A former Swedish organised criminal claimed grenades were obtainable for as little as 1,000 Swedish Kronor (£91/$123). Swedish Police Treating Christmas Day Explosion as Attempted Murder https://t.co/M6iRcTvTdW — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 25, 2018

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Interested in Elections? Add Elections as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Elections news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest Georgia's outdated election system has drawn criticism from cybersecurity experts and voting integrity advocates, and now a commission tasked with examining potential replacements is preparing to make recommendations to lawmakers. The paperless system was closely scrutinized during last year's nationally watched gubernatorial race between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, who was Georgia's secretary of state and chief elections official. Abrams and her allies accused Kemp of suppressing minority votes and mismanaging the election, including by neglecting elections infrastructure. Kemp, now governor-elect, has vehemently denied those allegations. Cybersecurity experts have warned that the touchscreen voting machines Georgia has used since 2002 are unreliable and vulnerable to hacking, and provide no way to do an audit or confirm that votes have been recorded correctly because there's no paper trail. The state's voting system has been challenged in lawsuits, including one filed after the November election by Fair Fight Action, a nonprofit backed by Abrams. In addition to the outdated machines, critics also raised concerns after security lapses exposed the personal information of Georgia voters. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg wrote in September that Georgia election officials had stalled too long in the face of "a mounting tide of evidence of the inadequacy and security risks" of the state's voting system. She declined to order the state to use paper ballots in the midterm elections, saying there was not enough time before voting began. But she warned that "these same arguments would hold much less sway in the future." Kemp has insisted that the current system is secure and reliable. But after legislative efforts to replace it failed earlier this year, he established the Secure, Accessible and Fair Elections, or SAFE, Commission in April to study potential replacements. Made up of lawmakers, political party representatives, voters and election officials, the commission is expected to make recommendations before the legislative session begins Jan. 14. A vendor demonstration of election technology is scheduled for Thursday. Ryan Germany, general counsel for the secretary of state's office, told the commission at a meeting last month in Macon that Georgia must act quickly. "The 2020 election cycle is an aggressive goal, but I think it's the correct goal," he said, adding that the state would almost certainly face additional litigation if a new system isn't in place by then. The commissioners seemed to agree Georgia's system should produce a paper record and that election officials should conduct post-election audits. Some commission members said they support paper ballots that voters mark by hand, filling in bubbles with a pen or pencil. But others prefer touchscreen ballot-marking machines that print a paper record. Republican State Rep. Barry Fleming, who co-chairs the commission, said costs vary widely. Initial expenditures would be roughly $50 million for a hand-marked paper ballot system and about $150 million for a ballot-marking machine system, he said at last month's meeting. Georgia Tech computer science professor Wenke Lee, the only computer and cybersecurity expert on the commission, told his fellow commissioners that technology evolves quickly and investing in an expensive, tech-heavy system could leave Georgia with an outdated system again within just a few years. He recommended hand-marked paper ballots read by optical scanner. "From a cybersecurity point of view, that's the best available solution," he said at the meeting. "Now, if you say we don't want that, you need to justify why." Supporters of ballot-marking machines argue that they reduce voter error and provide better accessibility for voters with disabilities. They say the touchscreen machines are similar to those in use now, so voters already know how to use them. Critics say such machines are no more secure than the current system and don't actually allow voters to verify their votes. The machines print out barcodes that correspond to the voter's selections, as well as a separate list that's readable by a voter. But votes are counted by machines that scan the barcodes, so there's no way for voters to know whether what's scanned actually reflects their votes, said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which has sued the state over the current system. Additionally, she said, voters may not notice if a race is missing or may not remember how they voted on, say, "Statewide Referendum B." Wenke said voters might not bother to review a printout. If what the machine recorded is incorrect and the voter doesn't catch it, the ability to audit is meaningless, he said. Commission member Darin McCoy, the probate judge and election superintendent in Evans County, dismissed that concern. "If we provide the voter with a paper ballot of what they've done and they don't take the time to look at that and verify, there's nothing we can do," he said. "That's the voter's responsibility." After the commission makes its recommendations, lawmakers would have to pass legislation to change the state's election laws. Funding would have to be secured and the system purchased in time to educate election workers and voters. Whatever they decide, the timeline is tight. Commission members seemed to agree they'd like to have a trial run during the November 2019 municipal elections and implement a new system statewide for the 2020 election cycle.

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First Lady Melania Trump has been the target of many a media hit piece in 2018. Here are 10 times (and a bonus from 2017) the media slammed first lady Trump in 2018. 1. Mrs. Trump wore a white pantsuit for husband President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in January and faced backlash over claims it pointed to women’s suffrage and Hillary Clinton. The New York Times “Case of the White Pantsuit” called the outfit “something of an anti-Trump uniform.” 2. “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” Hysteria: Media outlets leaped to report a message spelled out on the back of a jacket the first lady worn to get on and off a plane to the U.S. southern border in June. What wasn’t highlighted was that Trump did not wear the jacket at the facilities where she was visiting children on the day trip. First Lady Trump later explained in an October interview with ABC that the message was aimed at left-wing media and critics. “It’s obvious I didn’t wear it for the children,” she affirmed. “I wore the jacket to go on the plane and off the plane and it was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me and I want to show them that I don’t care. You can criticize whatever you want to say but it will not stop me to do what I feel is right.” 3. “Trash Flair” Louboutin Stilettos: Media seized on the first lady’s high fashion and widely sought after brand of shoes. Reports centered around the brand’s description of the design of hand-torn Louboutin shopping bags as having an “audacious new trash flair.” The Daily Mail reported she wore the shoes to board a plane to Europe with husband President Trump in July and changed into a different pair that she wore when she deplaned. 4. Africa Shade: Media and social media posters favored hyper-focusing on a hat choice as Mrs. Trump visited a wildlife trust and national park during a trip to Africa in October. CNN condemned the hat, “While pith helmets are still available for purchase online and in hat shops, they have come to symbolize white colonialist rule over the years, and, according to the Guardian, ‘a symbol of status — and oppression.’” 5. Media Hits Melania for Hitting Media: Mrs. Trump called for “really hard evidence” to back up claims of sexual assault “because sometimes the media goes too far.” Surely Vogue clapped back with a slam on her hat and claiming she was trying to have it both ways on #MeToo. 6. Christmas Catastrophe Claim (Again): Christmas 2017 brought criticism of the first lady’s decor design in the White House East Wing and 2018 was no different. A hallway filled with cranberry-clad tall cone-shaped trees elicited criticism from tweeters that Vogue collected in an article mocking the design as “more inspired by hell than a holly, jolly Christmas.” 7. Blonde Bashing: One Vanity Fair writer spent “hours of [her] life trying to figure out” if [the first lady’s] hair was lighter or if the harsh light at a marine base was making it look lighter” and resolved, “I regret nothing.” The writer was referring to Mrs. Trump’s appearance on Fox News in December with host Sean Hannity. The writer pressed on, “Several people wondered aloud why Trump is gradually becoming more like “Stifler’s mom.” That’s not really fair. Jennifer Coolidge is a national treasure.” 8. CNN Contributor Kate Brower slammed the first lady over the Hannity interview for a different reason, claiming Mrs. Trump “doesn’t understand what it means to be first lady.” The first lady’s communications director Stephanie Grisham stood strongly against the slam, writing an op-ed of her own ran on CNN’s website. Grisham called out Brower for the “condescending opinion” that failed to recognize even the first lady’s actions earlier that evening spending time with sick children at Washington, DC’s Children’s National Hospital, a long-held first lady’s tradition. There Mrs. Trump read to the children and spent time talking with them. “the media consistently ignores the first lady’s work on behalf of the people of this country, and children in particular, in favor of more trivial matters,” Grisham wrote. 9. “Investigation” into Leather Pants Worn Coming Home from War Zone Christmas Visit to Boost American troops: Vanity Fair launched a full-on “investigation” into Mrs. Trump’s leg wear, sidelining the fact that she had just returned from visiting American military troops in a Middle East combat zone. The first lady joined husband President Trump on the Christmas night covert flight to the Iraq and Germany to visit, thank, and bring Christmas greetings to American troops serving overseas over the holiday. 10. Magazine Cover Blackout: Mrs. Trump appeared on many magazine covers in her days as a fashion model, but as first lady she has been absent from such high fashion glossy covers. Debate remains on the reason as the Washington Times cited university lecturers who put the fault on Mrs. Trump. During the trip to Africa Mrs. Trump rebuked press hyper-focusing on criticizing her fashion choices. Reporters given an opportunity to ask the first lady any questions in a rare Q&A quickly seized on subjects outside of her work on the trip. One honed in on the pith helmet controversy, to which she shot back, “You know what, we just completed an amazing trip…I want to talk about my trip and not what I wear.” BONUS: Flashback from 2017 — Hurricane Heels: First lady Trump traveled to Texas with husband Donald Trump in August to visit victims of Hurricane Harvey. Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, and the New York Times were among publications who slammed her for the footwear choice after viewing her boarding the flight. Some later managed to update their stories when she deplaned in aptly chosen flat sneakers, some didn’t. CNN’s Amanda Carpenter and MSNBC’s Zerlina Maxwell joined in the condemnations from commentators. The first lady’s communications director Stephanie Grisham said of the attacks at the time, “It’s sad that we have an active and ongoing natural disaster in Texas, and people are worried about her shoes.” Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook

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A 10-month-old baby girl buried in the rubble of a collapsed building in Russia for 35 hours was pulled out alive Tuesday by rescuers who braved subzero conditions to save her. Rescuers staged the dramatic rescue after hearing cries amid the debris. "The child was saved because it was in a crib and wrapped warmly," regional governor Boris Dubrovsky was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The TASS news agency reported that the baby was taken in “grave” condition to the hospital. Officials reported at least seven people dead in the New Year’s Eve collapse of the 10-story building in the city of Magnitogorsk. Investigators blamed the collapse on an explosion triggered by a natural gas leak. The regional emergency ministry said earlier Tuesday that 37 residents of the building had not been accounted for. Hopes of finding survivors were dimmed by the harsh cold: Temperatures overnight were around 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Rescue crews had temporarily halted their search while workers tried to remove or stabilize sections of the building in danger of collapse. COLORADO DAD WELCOMES BABY GIRL, LOSES WIFE ON SAME DAY Five people were hospitalized with injuries from the collapse in the city about 870 miles southeast of Moscow, the emergency ministry said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 Russian rescuers on Tuesday pulled an infant boy alive from the rubble of an apartment building, some 35 hours after a collapse that killed at least seven people and left dozens missing. They found the baby after hearing cries amid the debris. A section of the 10-story building in the city of Magnitogorsk collapsed on Monday following an explosion believed to have been triggered by a natural gas leak. The child, who officials initially said was a girl, was seriously injured and his recovery prospects were unclear. The boy's mother survived the collapse and went to a local hospital to identify him, state news agency Tass reported, citing the regional emergencies ministry. The child will be evacuated to Moscow by airplane for further treatment, Tass said. The regional emergency ministry said earlier Tuesday that 37 residents of the building had not been accounted for. Hopes of finding survivors were dimmed by the harsh cold: Temperatures overnight were around minus 18 Celsius (0 Fahrenheit). "The child was saved because it was in a crib and wrapped warmly," regional governor Boris Dubrovsky was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. Rescue crews had temporarily halted their search while workers tried to remove or stabilize sections of the building in danger of collapse. Five people were hospitalized with injuries from the collapse in the city about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) southeast of Moscow, the emergency ministry said. In a separate holiday period disaster, seven people including a couple and their three children died in a house fire in in the town of Orsk, about 1500 kilometers (900 miles) southeast of Moscow, the Interfax news agency said. The fire early Tuesday is believed to have been caused by an electrical short-circuit, the report said. ___ This story has been corrected to give gender of the baby as male following new information from officials.

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2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

President Trump ushered in 2019 in characteristic fashion -- with a tweet expressing supreme confidence in himself, contempt for the “fake news media” and optimism for the country. The famously teetotaling commander-in-chief proved he wasn't nursing a New Year's hangover with the early morning missive, his second of the freshly-minted year. The first was a message praising former adviser Sebastian Gorka, who has a book out. “Happy new year to everyone, including the haters and the fake news media!” the president tweeted. “2019 will be a fantastic year for those not suffering from Trump derangement syndrome.” Trump added, “Just calm down and enjoy the ride, great things are happening for our country!” Trump also used Twitter to fire back at a critic who had slammed him on television days earlier, labeling retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal a "Hillary lover!" with a “big, dumb mouth." McChrystal, appearing on ABC's "This Week," said Trump is immoral and doesn't tell the truth. The first tweets of the year indicate the president will not slow down his social media activity in the new year. Trump enters 2019 facing a number of challenges: a partial government shutdown, a volatile stock market, Democrats taking control of the House, a forthcoming report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, White House staff turnover and the kick-off to his 2020 re-election campaign. The partial federal government shutdown enters its second week – and the new year – without a deal to re-open the government in sight, as both sides continue digging in over funding for a barrier on the border with Mexico. House Democrats plan to introduce a legislative package to re-open the government once they get control of the House on Thursday, but it's not clear what kind of support it will get from Republicans. Trump has said he will only support a bill with funding for his border wall. "The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall," the president tweeted Tuesday. "So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security - and our Country must finally have a Strong and Secure Southern Border!" CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP On Wall Street, while other signs indicate the economy is strong, U.S. stocks wrapped up a volatile year and month as a number of worries weighed on investor sentiment. The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broader S&P 500 both ended the year about 7 percent lower, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed out 2018 about 4 percent down – its biggest one-year decline since 2008. On Capitol Hill, the incoming Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has the power to open a slew of investigations into the White House and President Trump when the new Congress is seated this week, and early indications are that Democrats plan to aggressively take advantage of their new authority. The president is also preparing for the completion of a report by Mueller, whose team has been investigating whether anyone from Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election, and other issues. Mueller's findings might provide a launching point not only for further investigations but for even impeachment proceedings from House Democrats. While some in the party have already pushed for impeachment, Democratic leaders have yet to embrace the effort. The president also faces the challenge of staffing his administration and getting his new Cabinet picks confirmed from the Senate, amid departures of the White House chief of staff, the secretary of defense, his attorney general, and other positions. TRUMP: WARREN'S 'PSYCHIATRIST' KNOWS WHETHER SHE THINKS SHE CAN WIN WHITE HOUSE IN 2020 Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who submitted his resignation on Dec. 20 and was, in effect, fired by Trump three days later, is being replaced by Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan. Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, will be acting defense secretary until someone is nominated for the post. Trump is also gearing up for re-election, as several dozen Democrats could launch campaigns to challenge him in 2020. On Monday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced the formation of her exploratory committee. The president wasted no time in attacking her, reviving claims Warren repeatedly lied about her heritage to obtain affirmative-action benefits in the course of her academic career. In an interview with Fox News' Pete Hegseth, Trump was asked whether Warren really thinks she could make him a one-term president. "Well, that I don't know," Trump responded. "You’d have to ask her psychiatrist." Fox News’ Greg Re and Fox Business’ Mike Obel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

ANKARA, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Retail prices in Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city, rose by 13.68 percent in 2018 and wholesale prices increased by 17.79 percent, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) said on Monday. Retail prices dropped by 0.14 percent month-on-month in December, while wholesale prices in Istanbul, home to about a fifth of Turkey’s population of 81 million, increased by 0.58 percent month-on-month, ITO said. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu)

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

A woman drowning in thick, muddy water that was rising up to her neck was rescued just in time by Florida deputies who raced through thick fog to find her just hours into the new year. The desperate rescue began when the woman's car flipped into water as she drove near Tampa's Florida State Fairgrounds shortly before 4 a.m., the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said. As the muddy water rose from her chest to her neck, the 911 communication center could "hear the desperation in her voice" when she called for help, authorities said at a news conference Tuesday. Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office Thirteen patrol units raced to the area, searching through thick fog that had blanketed the region, the sheriff's office said. Some 15 minutes later, authorities found the woman, and "after fighting the mud she was encased in, they were finally able to rescue her," the sheriff's office said in a press release. Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office She is home in good condition, the sheriff's office said, calling her "extremely fortunate." Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office spokesman Daniel Alvarez told reporters it was a "great scenario where everything just came together the right way." "We fought the mud, we fought the weather, we fought the lack of knowing where she was, and today she came out alive because of a really good team effort."

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

The latest on the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil's new president (all times local): 3:15 p.m. Jair Bolsonaro has been sworn in as Brazil's president. The former army captain is taking the reins of Latin America's largest and most populous nation promising to overhaul myriad aspects of daily life and put an end to business-as-usual governing. The New Year's Day inauguration is the culmination of Bolsonaro's journey from a marginalized and even ridiculed congressmen to a leader who many Brazilians hope can combat endemic corruption as well as violence that routinely gives the nation the dubious distinction of being world leader in total homicides. A fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, the 63-year-old longtime congressman rose to power on an anti-corruption and pro-gun agenda. Those stances energized conservatives and hard-right supporters after four consecutive presidential election wins by the left-leaning Workers' Party. Many of his stances also terrify detractors, who fear an increase in violence, particularly by police. 3:05 p.m. Crowds appeared to be much smaller than the number of people the incoming administration of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro was expecting for his inauguration. Administration officials say they expected 500,000 supporters to come to the capital of Brasilia. However, large swaths of the areas around Congress are empty as Bolsonaro and his wife ride in on an open-top Rolls-Royce. No official estimates are immediately available. The ceremonies are being held under tight security and four checkpoints have been set up. Journalists covering the event were required to be in position seven hours before the ceremonies were to begin. ——— 1:35 p.m. Journalists are complaining about how they are being treated in the hours ahead of the inauguration of Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, a vocal critic of the media. The organization of the event is severely limiting media access in public buildings. Journalists were obligated to show up seven hours before the ceremonies were to begin in the late afternoon. According to several voicing complains on Twitter, guards are seizing items they took to feed themselves as they wait, such as apples and forks because allegedly they are a risk. Bolsonaro, a fan of US President Donald Trump, has promised to cut advertising funds of state-owned companies to some media organizations. ——— 12:30 p.m. Several of Brazil's new state governors have been sworn in ahead of the afternoon inauguration of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro. Upon being sworn in, Sao Paulo Gov. Joao Doria promised to "rescue (the state's) passion for doing well." Doria was previously mayor of the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest. In Rio de Janeiro, Gov. Wilson Witzel reiterated campaign promises to crack down on crime, one of the state's biggest problems. He called drug traffickers "narco-terrorists," adding they would "be treated like terrorists." Witzel, closely aligned with Bolsonaro, has floated ideas that include using sharp-shooters during police operations to shoot and kill drug traffickers. Bolsonaro's inauguration is expected to begin around 3 p.m. local time (1700 GMT). ——— 3 a.m. Former Brazilian army captain Jair Bolsonaro is taking office as president Tuesday promising to overhaul many aspects of life in Latin America's largest nation. He is no longer the outsider mocked by fellow lawmakers for his far-right positions, constant use of expletives and even casual dressing. Bolsonaro rose to power on an anti-corruption and pro-gun agenda that has energized Brazilian conservatives and hard-right supporters after four consecutive presidential election wins by the left-leaning Workers' Party. He is the latest of several far-right leaders around the world who have come to power by riding waves of anger at the establishment and promises to ditch the status quo. Brasilia will be under tight security, with 3,000 police patrolling the event. Military tanks, fighter jets and even anti-aircraft missiles will also be deployed.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

His supporters call him “The Myth.” But on Tuesday, Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency became a reality as he took office in Brazil, Latin America’s largest democracy. Bolsonaro’s supporters see him as the one who’s going to put Brazil on the right track by putting an end to corruption. But others see him as deeply divisive, having made many racist, misogynistic and homophobic remarks. For this last group of people, their future is unclear, they say. Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images “I am scared,” Carlos B., 37, an architect living in Rio de Janeiro, told ABC News. He watched Bolsonaro’s inauguration ceremony on TV with his husband, he said. “We don’t know what is going happen. My husband is pushing to move out but I don’t want to leave my country.” The former Army captain who is now the 38th president of Brazil, has said in the past that he would prefer a son who died in an accident than one who was homosexual. He also declared once that he was a proud homophobe. Eraldo Peres/AP According to Grupo Gay da Bahia, an LGBT human rights organization, 445 LGBT people died in 2017 from violence or suicide due to what it calls “LGBTphobia.” That equates to one death about every 20 hours, a 30 percent spike from the previous year, the organization said. Carlos B. told ABC News that a month ago he was with his husband in one of Rio’s wealthier neighborhoods, Barra da Tijuca, when they were assaulted. “We kissed on the beach and one man followed us and robbed us, saying that we deserved to be robbed,” he said. “I didn’t go to the police, I knew it was useless.” Cris Faga/NurPhoto via Getty Images, FILE Yet, despite fears over how they will be treated, some LGBT people believe there are more pressing matters to address across the country, such as corruption and the economy. Brazil is still reeling from ongoing criminal investigations that implicate oil and construction executives, politicians, congressmen and four former presidents, including the Workers’ Party Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is serving 12 years for accepting favors. “Major concerns in Brazil now are not LGBT rights, but to get out of the economic recession. Brazil needs a better economy. This is the priority," Tiago Pavonetto, 34, a lawyer in Sao Paulo who voted for Bolsonaro, told ABC News. "After 14 years of [having the] Workers’ Party in power, it did not take me more than a second. I picked Jair Bolsonaro. There was no doubt. I voted for him,” he added. Cris Faga/NurPhoto via Getty Images Pavonetto also seemed to brush off the idea that you could change Bolsonaro’s mind about LGBT people, saying Bolsonaro’s beliefs are in line with other men his age. Bolsonaro is 63 years old. "Jair Bolsonaro flirted with homophobia before his campaign,” Pavonetto said. “He is a rude man and represents the average opinion of any Brazilian man of his age. He is like my father.”

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Israel officially left the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on New Year’s Day in protest at the agency’s inability to combat its own politicization and profound anti-Israel bias. The United States completed its withdrawal from the Paris-based UN cultural agency at the same time. “UNESCO is a body that continually rewrites history, including by erasing the Jewish connection to Jerusalem,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told the Times of Israel in an interview ahead of the pullout that came at midnight Paris time (1 a.m. in Israel). “It is corrupted and manipulated by Israel’s enemies, and continually singles out the only Jewish state for condemnation. We are not going to be a member of an organization that deliberately acts against us.” Both countries announced their decisions in 2017, but, according to the UNESCO statute of membership, withdrawals go into effect at the end of the following year — in this case after the final tick of the clock on December 31, 2018. The departure comes after a series of anti-Israel decisions by the body, including accepting Palestine as a permanent member in 2011 and in July, 2017 declaring the Tomb of the Patriarchs – considered the second holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount – to be a Palestinian world heritage site in danger. UNESCO Approves Motion Denying Jewish, Christian Links to Temple Mount https://t.co/bqNYZvZEiC pic.twitter.com/MYwOzA1zoa — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 26, 2016 Another UNESCO decision disavowed Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. This ignores the fact some of Judaism’s holiest sites are located in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem; the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron; and Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus. Israel had joined UNESCO on September 16, 1949, and is home to six UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including Masada, the Old City of Acre, the Bahai Temples in Haifa and the “White City” of Tel Aviv. The Times reports they will all remain on the list. The U.S. has pulled out of UNESCO before. It left the body under President Ronald Reagan in 1984 over claims the body had a pro-Soviet bias. The U.S. re-entered in 2002 during the Bush administration but later cut its funding to the body in 2011 over the decision to admit “Palestine,” which is not a state.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 The Latest on the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro as Brazilian president (all times local): 12:30 p.m. Several of Brazil's new state governors have been sworn in ahead of the afternoon inauguration of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro. Upon being sworn in, Sao Paulo Gov. Joao Doria promised to "rescue (the state's) passion for doing well." Doria was previously mayor of the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest. In Rio de Janeiro, Gov. Wilson Witzel reiterated campaign promises to crack down on crime, one of the state's biggest problems. He called drug traffickers "narco-terrorists," adding they would "be treated like terrorists." Witzel, closely aligned with Bolsonaro, has floated ideas that include using sharp-shooters during police operations to shoot and kill drug traffickers. Bolsonaro's inauguration is expected to begin around 3 p.m. local time (1700 GMT). ___ 3 a.m. Former Brazilian army captain Jair Bolsonaro is taking office as president Tuesday promising to overhaul many aspects of life in Latin America's largest nation. He is no longer the outsider mocked by fellow lawmakers for his far-right positions, constant use of expletives and even casual dressing. Bolsonaro rose to power on an anti-corruption and pro-gun agenda that has energized Brazilian conservatives and hard-right supporters after four consecutive presidential election wins by the left-leaning Workers' Party. He is the latest of several far-right leaders around the world who have come to power by riding waves of anger at the establishment and promises to ditch the status quo. Brasilia will be under tight security, with 3,000 police patrolling the event. Military tanks, fighter jets and even anti-aircraft missiles will also be deployed.

polusa

2019_1_test.csv

2019_1_test.csv0 53010215 1 59549287 2 59633617 3 52963105 4 18321756 ... 162989 4829910 162990 4889401 162991 4884295 162992 4760206 162993 4533244 Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64

Jeanne Calment, the French woman who holds the title as the world’s oldest person, may have been a fraud, Russian researchers allege. Calment died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days. However, Nikolai Zak, a mathematician and a member of the Society of Naturalists of Moscow University, wrote in his study, “Jeanne Calment: The secret of longevity,” that he believed the French woman “took the identity of her mother.” Zak told the Agence France-Press [AFP] that he analyzed biographies, photos and archives from Arles, the city in southern France where Calment lived and determined his conclusion. Gerontologist Valeri Novoselov supported his research. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "The analysis of all these documents led me to the conclusion that the daughter of Jeanne Calment, Yvonne, took the identity of her mother," Zak told the AFP. According to an official document, Calment’s daughter Yvonne died of pleurisy in 1934. However, Zak believed the mother, Jeanne Calment died and Yvonne “borrowed the identity” of her mother in order to avoid “paying the inheritance tax.” Calment is believed to have been 99 when she died in 1997, researchers said. Novoselov told the AFP he “always had doubts” about Calment’s age. He said Calment was “sitting without support” and had “no signs of dementia.” KIM JONG UN SAYS HE’S WILLING TO MEET TRUMP AT ANY TIME, IN NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE Jean-Marie Robine, a French demographer and gerontologist who helped the Guinness book of World Records on the validity of records regarding Calment’s agent said he “never had any doubt about the authenticity of the documents.” Nicolas Brouard, the director of research at the French Institute of Demographic Studies, has called on the bodies of Jeanne and Yvonne Calment to be exhumed in order to determine how old they were. If Calment’s record is canceled, Sarah Knauss, an American, will be named the world’s oldest person. Knauss died in 1999 at the age of 119.