battleaxe so mighty and heroic that none could wield it. Many enterprising souls made an attempt; and eventually the people called for Tsarbog Zoric to lift it, only to find that not even their hands could swing it. And then, some time later, a shepardess named Mirsada Mišić used it in the defense of the village against chaosbeasts. the Tsarbog, impressed by her heroism, offered her a place in court and a position as a bogatyr. Humbled, the smith granted the mighty battleaxe to Mirsada Mišić.

A beggar named Dimitar Velimich Trajkovski approached the Tsarbog and begged a place at court, claiming that he can smell lies provided he remain a beggar. After some testing, the court finds this to be true and Božena allowed him to beg onher grounds.

Ana Tihomichna, a woman with no arms, no legs, and (very recently) no family made her way to court to ask the Tsarbog for a place among her bogatyr. When asked what she would offer the court, Ana Tihomichna demonstrated that she could spit a dry bean with such force that it could burst through a stone wall an arm’s-length thick. The Tsarbog granted her request.

Maciticaaltepetl

A funeral procession was had for Javid, Rogers, and Kahele. As they had died in battle, their spirits were sent to Acopa.

Xelhua, Ramon, and the various elected officials of the city arranged a trade alliance with the nearby Bakersfield and Domochlovek.

In which the dream team meet their destinies

Ken

STEarly March, 2027
Brisk but warming coastal air lingers on the skin and in the lungs


plates. But there is nothing to eat.
Dovile looks at the clock. Eight twenty seven.
Almost time.
She goes back to her room. There’s a cardboard box by her bed. She reaches in, pushing past the cleaning cloths and cotton. The familiar bumps of textured polymer, right where they belonged. Dovile pulled out her pistol.
It should have been the old TT-30 her uncle used. But that pistol was long gone. They’d taken it, with his body. Instead it was her’s, scarred by sand and sun.
For a moment she sat there, ill-fitting dress a neat dark blue against the old sheets, the pistol heavy in her hand. It felt like a weight, holding her to the world.
Dovile cleared the gun, out of habit, and reached down for a magazine, slipped it in—
Shestopped, hand resting on the cocking slide.
Duty first.
Only one left, now.
Dovile took a deep breath. In. Out.
She stood up, walked back out to the kitchen.
Laid the pistol on the table, at her seat. With almost surprise she looks down at her hand. The star on the grip, worn nearly smooth, has left an imprint in her palm.
She looks at the clock. Eight fourty. Time to go.
Black coat on.
She locks the door behind her as she leaves.
Her footsteps echo down the stairs.
Almost done now.nintey six steps, down to the street. A walk in the summer warmth, chilled to the bone. A funeral.Only the priest comes.That was a laugh, a priest at the funeral.nintey six steps, up to the door.Almost done now…
A pistol, loaded, on a grey table cloth.What are


behind prickling necka place to hide soft and warm and safe and secret
The earth.inexorable and unchanging a heavy weight over head pressing in all aroundsweet thick smell of rain the high sharp notes of sunfed flowersa hound, a hunter, a place of rest, a keeper of bones, a tender of blooming shadows, an ender of life, trailing posion thorns,MorevukaBE
gasping with a mouth not meant for breathing—the sun is risingthe moon is meltingthe snow is flying
You aren’t done yet.
Dovile opened golden eyes and howled.

ST
Heated, rolled, kneaded, cooled, etched
Something New
Something Old
All at once…
A sun.light inexorably moving across the same path each day after each day like a lawwarmth beckoning forth the bloom, drawing sleepers gently awake
A fire.blazing flame burning corruption emptycrackling hearth, merry and welcoming
A vision.cold, driving certainty of purposewarm,stormwindsthe time between summer and winter, which is warm and cold, fertile and barren, suffused with true magic and empty hallucinationshe who walks between, she who wanders the spaces around order, she who traverses through lawYesenBE

ST
And then something unfurls before them, around them, underneath them. Like a yawn. Like a stretch. Like a hand. It cools and warms and releases them all at once.

ST
Yes.
I see you.
You are beautiful.

ST
NO!

ST
An agonized howl, ringing off the walls of the egg, spreading to the edges of existence.

ST
NO!

ST
Mokosits, filled with yearning, empty with cavernous pain.

ST
Put me back… please…

ST
Dropping to back, driven to knees, exposing the soft of the belly, exposing the nape of the neck.

ST
I beg you… Lord Father Svarog… please…

ST
A pause, as if of astonishment, as if expectant but space-giving.

ST
And then, laid


of offerings, of answers. Waiting.
The shadows of the freshly bloomed flowers call with their gentle, cultivated voices; a new song, a familiar song.
They sing to regroup. The sky is split.
The shadows of the aged, deep roots call with their strong, resonant voices; an ancient song, a familiar song.
They sing to hunt. The sky is split.

Morevuka
Morevuka reaches out for the pack, and they run.
The sky is split.
They are needed.

Star-Bringer

STMarch 20th, early evening
White steam drifts upwards from hot spiced cider in large, ceramic tankards. Designs of wolves, snakes, and corpses line the bottom, half-carved and half-stained. The air outside is brisk with the slight sharp bite of dry cold. Above, the sun is a wan, pale thing, veiled by sickly-looking clouds. Snowflakes drift idly down.
The porch smells still of fresh-cutinto view, headed for the porch. And then snow explodes on the back of his head, causing him to yelp and drop some of the wood.
At this, Sigyn looks to Narvi.
Narvi whirls and is greeted by a raucous whoop of laughter which echoes down the mountain. Vali flees. Narvi turns again, grinning the grin of playful vengeance, sets what’s left of the dry wood on the porch, nods to his mother and Sanura, and then turns and chases after his brother.
It doesn’t take long for the older to overcome the younger. They go down together in a spray of snow and tangle of fur-clad limbs. Narvi lets out a triumphant cry as he pins his wriggling brother, and buries his face in Vali’s stomach, making exaggerated eating noises


danced around her, giving her their light and beauty, of the first instance a web of them had been used by her hand, to entangle a foe. She looks to the shimmer of the shield around them and would share the story of its first use, and how she cherished the ability to offer protection without violence. She smiles a little as the most recent growth in her abilities comes to mind. She promises they will get to see a cat of stars one day, or more likely night. All this given in a somewhat cheerful tone, perhaps the practiced one of a museum guide.
By the time she’s run long on words but short of stories they’ve arrived at the outskirts of the town, where the skies arehighlight and try to hide behind as the blackness spreads down her body and the glow solidifies into tiny points of light, the woman no longer visible against the star field of a sky but her work goes on, and she creates moments of beauty growing in complexity and greatness till finally.. It’s as if the stars stop in place and shimmer down in a falling curtain. Sanura isn’t there any longer, but there in the sky over Bakersfield is a new shape in the celestial theatre, a Caracal kitten with Andromeda. The small shape bounds and leaps through the stars, dancing around the moon and playfully trying to pounce, after a moment of play the kitten grows to the size of Andromeda and then bounding over to


steps out. Elsewhere, a crack splits through the steadfast mountain, revealing the core. Elsewhere, growth snakes through, piercing like thorns, opening something up like a bloom. Elsewhere, the black nothing stretches out from the middle, vaster than ever, and… something steps through. Elsewhere, the blazing blood burns hot, conflagrating away everything until only something pure is left behind. Elsewhere, fire rises and water falls, swirling together like dance partners, mingling like lovers, building in speed and fervor until the sudden stillness, where nothing but what matters is left behind.
The lady fills her beloved city. The man who is as an icy mountain peak finds himself melting away. The one who sings the stormsong splits like lightning striking the earth.They are where they must be.
But…My work has only justlady.-
And, someone new. Someone with the bones of her friend, but no longer the blood. Where once vines clung tight like knotted wires around weary shoulders, they now floursh and bloom. Where once the earth was at rest below soft feet, it now trembles and shakes below a tread that knows no hesitation. Where once the shadow lay still and silent, it now leaps like a dog greeting its mistress:
-…Lisa…-
-My lady. Who have you become?-

ST
The moonlight flicks away, fading like a dream.
The guest bounds away, the shadows and sunlight and dreams nipping at his heels.

Veins on fire, each pulse speaking like a wardrum beating in something which is and is not, driving forth towards the vulgarity that tears across the sky

A million songs, playing at once, harmonies among


a different stitch, sending a single star through the rift and ‘out the back’ “Come on.. .. come back together..” she murmurs to the rent edges from which she felt sure nothing good would come.

ST
As bid, the stars trail, piercing the sky like needle and thread… but they fall into the hungry mouth of the rift, swallowed by the chaos within, leaving behind the holes punched through the sky by the sewing.

The feelings of Sun-Bearer, Angel, She-Who-Hungers and The Mother of the Lost are whisked along the roots of the Aspen to Yesen and Mokosits.
To The Drowned King, Storm-Bringer and Lake Isabella: -Lisa is in extremity. She tore the sky open. There are monsters.- And a location, an understanding.
To the Drowned King: -She pulled you and The Hungrybeen effective. She draws her hands down to her sides, shining claws pointed up in clawed hands. Cat like eyes moving across the sky and picking out the various constelations. Draco, Cerberus, Orion. All of them called to her aid. “Do not allow these creatures to the city!”

Ken
Changing. The unread words rewriting themselves underfoot, the tides reversing and changing branches blooming and dying and chaos oozing like pitch from the rip in the sky…. she is there and he can tell there is something to this, but not what it is when they all sing at once.
The pitch clings to their skin and hair and tongues.
Discordant pitch.
It should ooze elsewhere.
A song in the paths of memory: a place where stars also fell, where life and death were one


of the Lost within the branching paths of eternity. She wandered, her light small in the face of endlessness.
(Another ripple spreads; another thread weaves; another root reaches; another vein presses out. One action opens up countless ways like a fractal.)
… and future…It was not enough. She forged onward, turning fiercely away from the meaning of defeat as she ever did. And so she was lost…Seeing that she would need more, she drew upon the glittering stars that were her jewelry, scattering them down the paths she could not follow…It was not enough. This was made quickly evident, and so she stepped back, attempting to find the way back out. And so she was lost…She held the tales close and called to the Mother of the Lost with herbright, clear, commanding voice, reminding her of where she had come from…
(Ever-onward they go. For every way Star-Bringer follows, there are eight more that open up around her, beyond her reach, sieving through her grip like desert sands.)

Star-Bringer
stops in the huge scape of endless mind. Her brow furrowed in frustration as she looks around her again and her hand moves to the star at her throat as she ponders a moment. A faint twitch of a smile as she thinks there are easily as many paths as stars in the sky.. why not have them be her guides in a more active sense. When she lowers her hand from her necklace there is a white shimmering ball of light, it soars upwards into the endless black and from


it burst untold milions of stars all sent out with the request to find Lisa and lead her back here, or at least to return with direction to the mistress of the ‘lands’. The brightest of the stars remains just over Sanura’s head, a shining light to guide the others home or perhaps to gain the notice of The Mother of the Lost to guide her ‘home’.

STAnd so Star-Bringer called upon her stars, sending them out along the paths of eternity in search of the Mother of the Lost.
(Another fractal emerges from this action, and another from each of the stars.)

Star-Bringer
Sanura frowns as she watches more and more paths opening, softly cursing under her breath. She sighs and brings her hands up and waves them towards her inbefore, mentally reaching out to.. tap tap tap on their shoulders. Hoping to reach out of this endless sea and extend a hand upwards for aid.

STIt was not enough. This was made quickly evident, and so she stepped back, attempting to find the way back out…
(A meeting of paths, from with others branch; they begin to wind around to the circle as she seeks the past, giving rise to baffling recursions, and soon the past is indiscernable from the present is indiscernable from the future.)

Star-Bringer
Sanura grumbles again at the .. mess of .. tangle.. “hmmmn” she was looking at this all wrong. A faint nod of her head as she closes her eyes and leaves behind the impression of pathways. Upwards from the perspective of Gods and stars,


a tapestry but like a neural network, endless connections in all directions.)… and she reached out to manipulate the threads of Fate into a way out…

ST
Ken reaches out, following the line of his oath andripples, threads, roots, veins, a mazenone of these; all of these at oncefrom the center out, from then to now to the end of all things to the beginning
They open up to him, past…Alongside Star-Bringer with her sunlight glow and her book of memories…Without his anchor to Yesen, the lingering dream…
(It fades, it all fades, the ways withering unrealized.)
… present…With his lifeline in one hand, and the Star-Bringer’s in the other, Ken sought Star-Bringer within the branching paths of eternity. Around him, branches grow ever onward, endless, stretching and splitting and stretching again. Heout with a firm but gentle hand to try and grasp the wandering womans shoulder. “Lisa” her tone carrying more weight. Stars from her person move to block the path, the light making it hard to see past to all the possibilities.

STWith the stars blocking her vision, with the entreating touch on her shoulder, the Mother of the Lost turned to Star-Bringer.
(For a brief moment, it is clear, it is open. And then, a million, a trillion… somethings… wind through Star-Bringer, like snakes, like snapping synapses, like roots, and emerge from her, spreading off in every direction. Written in them are thousands of tales of success, of doom, of joy, of tragedy; over and over she lives through loss, through anger, through despair—and through ecstacy, through victory, through


you now. The son of Svarozhich—the grandson of Svarog—brings the sunlight and fire together as if between two powerful hands, allowing the superhot focus to fill him from from his center out, fueling him with the essence of millennia. Then he lifts the aspen, letting its roots wind around and through him. -Yesen, lend me your steps.-
A wordless breath comes across, raising him to the sky. A gleaming red-gold streak across the night sky follows, sliding for the rift.
He reaches back, drawing upon the senses of the warden. The field unfolds before his burning gaze, more complete than he could ever have dreamed.the tapestry unfolds before his burning gaze, revealing the falling of stars from the sky; a forgehammer strikes out at the autumn and its ringing blowmakes the tree shiver Dobrozhe presses the focus tighter.

ST
Below, the angel gallops through the sky on her shining steed, a choir trailing her like a cape.
Dobrozhe beams a focused light on the spot the hound had chosen.
The angel dismounts and the steed disappears in a flash of light.
Below, the divine brothers eat the distance with their paces, ax shining, spear glinting, bow groaning taut.
Dobrozhe sends them the images, the power of the monsters of chaos like the beating of a wardrum.
The arrow whistles across the battlefield, sinking to the fletching in the flesh of the quarry.

ST
Meanwhile, in the Gathering Pack (as they proceed on their routes and tasks)…

A warm, enfolding greeting from the gracious greeter to everyone in the pack, comfort given and received in turn even as


saved from collapse by the familiar singleminded resolve which comes from labor pangs and the strength of their father who props them each up with a stable branchlike shoulder.
Dobrozhe draws their agony away, pulling it tight to his enkindled heart.
The moist mother earth renews her pace, shaken but resolute, pausing only to turn back and offer a hand and murmur of encouragement to her stricken sister. The mother of man collects herself and takes them both, and together they continue on.

Mokosh’s cautious thought pushes forth. -My Lord, are you…-

ST
Dobrozhe doubles on himself and begins to sink to the ground under the weight of the pain.

Irritation twines across like the winding growth of a vine. What was he thinking! -Perhaps you ought to give it back to us, Lordemotions, experiences weathered into them with the ravages of time singing like bones and pounding like a pulse

Mokosits lends her the cold focus his sister bestowed upon him.

A group of scattered dreams gather together.

-My Lady.- Dobrozhe speaks gently, but firmly.

The voice of Johanna resounds: -Petrov.- The name rings hollow, feeling fondly remembered albeit disused, like the name of long-forgotten friend. She hands the focus back.

Dobrozhe trades her the information like a parcel. She accepts it, opens it, and it falls into the mass of patchwork dreams, scattering briefly before gathering toward her again. -Can you keep the people safe?- he asks.

-Yes.-
Another gathering, a drawing together of all the ends of Bakersfield. And then the walls grow, unseen but strong.

Mokosits’s thought slides across like a smooth-crooked bow. -May I


assist, Lady?-

-Be my guest.-

Alongside the growing shield Mokosits weaves the thread of dreams: dreams of the sky, dreams of the earth empty of all but scrub and succulant, dreams of the warm, wet jungle.
Bakersfield turns away from the eye of the rift and the senses of the beasts.
It comes easily to Mokosits—too easily, an outpour of a miscalculated flood of tea. And the shell cracks. He tugs sharply, yanking it to a halt like an unruly horse. And then he buries the fear, the despair, the anger deep in the dark earth.

Morevuka
So many of them are still in the earth.
Gathering strength, tearing at the womb of her mother, at the body of her aunt.
Memories beat at the wall of her mind, but they beat with fists of mist.Too far away, too quiet. It’s the shadows of the earth that speak, almost too loud to hear. Almost bloting out thought with guidance and orders and pleas and whispers…
The earth buldges with mis-born, growing children. Thrashing, pericing with thorns and ripping with claws.
But still lying in the earth, their hearts beating in time with the Mother’s.
Their breath- hers.
Their life- hers.
Bound with roots, many and spreading-
Bound with a tie of flesh and bloom, one white wiggling worm of muscle and fat.
Morevuka breathed in, shadow and pain. The ground is full of shadows, and her eyes extend there-
Into the belly of the earth.
The cord is strong beneath her teeth. Gristle, gripped between the teeth, with the cold of ice, or of stone.
take a breath, draw fire along the roots


come, sliding deeper.
another, and another, life leaking out from between her teeth
And the a pause, a breath, a moment of comfort waiting, passed on.

ST
Beneath the earth, the children of chaos cease and settle into a final rest, one-by-one.
Upon the soil, fields of wheat grow one by one. Behemoths lurch and stomp and squeal and roar. They are met by fire and blade and ax and spear and arrowflight.
Meanwhile…
The masters of desert and oasis disembark.
The guardians of the pharaoh bound after their charge; eyes gleaming, teeth flashing.
The lurker in the water surges forward, his powerful body wending a path like a river through the snapping beasts.
The lion of war lopes towards his prey, a roar ringing out across the world like a dare.
The wandering warrior waits only to receiveraging sunfire just before it can dive into the mouth of hell. The two fall to the earth, striking as a meteor. Fire blazes, but claws only dig, pressing the prey to the ground. And then a wide, circular eye stares, pupil narrowing to a black slit amidst white. Reflected within is control at its purest, a sharp, blazing eye unclouded by rage.
And then she steps off. The prince of the sun rises, nods to his sacred guardian, and assesses the situation anew. In short order he motions to the wandering warrior who joins them. And then, they start off.

ST
The lion pulls shoulder to shoulder with the lioness. Wordlessly, as one, they part, the lion charging a behemoth straight-on as the lioness circles around the back. Teeth and


a loquacious tongue.
At the circling warriors closing in, the behemoth stomps, quaking the earth, and lets out a gurgling roar, a blast of sound which rolls out, scattering debris and hitting like a wall of bone-breaking force. The rooted one steps forward, the others gathering behind, and spreads his feet, turning one shoulder to the wall. It hits with a CRACK!, and the dug feet drag a deepening backwards furrow in the ground. But the others are spared, allowing them to continue their progress—and the rooted one straightens and rolls his shoulder with crackling and popping that fades to the groaning of taut, newly-healed muscle and joins the charge anew.

ST
And below, the dread drowned king, the empty one, and the moon’s light emerge to the fractured world. Theempty one reaches in and stretches wide the way to the nothing beyond all things and holds a hand out to her husband and their escort. With a polite dismissal the moon’s light starts off to where the Hammer calls; and the terrible couple pass behind and through the distance between them and their divine mother.

ST
Finally, as Morevuka finishes her grim work…
The paragons gather, weapons resting in experienced hands like limbs too long unused.
The wardog and his three companions, horror, dread, and war’s sister sprint forward, unheeding of those behind them, rebel yells ripping from their throats.
The strategist motions sharply to the others. The queen, the hero, and the shadowed lord form up around her; the huntress sprints into the sky with a few long, leaping strides; the


messenger streaks across the night sky, message held on his quicksilver tongue.
Dobrozhe quickly unfolds an update before the strategist, along with an offering of a pack of shadow wolves. She accepts it, and at his bidding the wolves spread to stalk the others.
The blood-keepers crouch through the jungle foliage, vicious weapons brought to bear.
The blackened god stalks from shadow to shadow ahead of the rest, yellow cat-eyes twitching, flat tongue flicking over thirsting lips. His charge follows, one hand on the powerful shoulder of the half-tamed beast beside him.
The king of the south limps on a bandaged leg, pain twitching through his skin but not twisting the yellow and blue stripes across his face.
The goggle-eyed rainbearer pulls his hidebound shield close, keeping apace with his limping king.
The ladyhamster wheel of apocalyptic monsters.-

Dovile is gone for a moment, as another contraction comes. When she returns she sends a wolf to Sun Bearer (Formerly Known as Derrick), since Bast has cleared his mind.

This time the Drowned King begins to laugh, a snorting, snickering, half-suppressed feeling.

The Swan Maiden sends along the image of a giant monstrous hamster running through the aforementioned wheel, and then tripping up and tumbling, spinning in dizzy circles.

It is to this that Sun-Bearer enters the Gathering Pack. -Clearly I missed something.- He is dry, unamused.

Sanura snorts softly at the mental image and shakes her head. Smiling despite herself. -Unless Ken wants to be custondian of our very own pet demon wheel I think we need to form a plan-

Ken looks up at the huge,


the wolf streaches, as if the sun was dropping out of the sky. In a moment, the rooftop is covered in shadow.
And they are in a place of shadow, warm and moist.
The shadow recedes, leaving them standing in triage.

ST
Outside…
The Mother of the Lost reaches out on the paths. It isn’t hard—she knows well the shapes of her children on the tapestry of Fate. She listens for the subtle metallic whisper of scissors, pinpointing which threads they are closest to.
There…
The beast striking at Ruben with its circular mouth full of teeth suddenly draws back, startled, and slinks away from the boy to find prey. Hector bounds off after it; and Ruben straightens, staring after the creature to figure out what the hell was going on.
Meanwhile, at triage…
The shadow deepensbeneath the protective canvas of interwoven branches. Resolve closes her stone fist, but then eases it as Jeff and Galen appear, tears still streaking down their faces from unseeing eyes. Quickly, Resolve moves to steady them with her touch. Angel’s ear twitches at the disharmony, so small and so simple. With a single, low hum, the disharmony eases, rising from flat and dropping from sharp to meet her. And then the two of them blink their vision back into place.
Jeff sits, the strength stolen from his knees at the sight of Angel and Resolve. Even Galen is at a bit of a loss, his mouth hanging slightly open.

ST
And then…
A sound which is at once the groaning of a twisted cloth, the soft, quick, subtle slicing of a thread,


been.

To Dobrhozhe: -Okay, I’m done. Give me more of that.- Pain, lifted up and away.
Another breath.
To Yesen: -The moon sent a hug. I put it under the muffins to keep it warm.-

ST
The lioness’s nose twitches and her ear flicks at the coming of the caracal, her mouth and teeth stained with multicolored ichor. She draws away, circling far around to intercept the caracal. Her eyes scan over the lesser cat, nostrils flared, then she looks up to the great beast before them. Her body language tightens, her tail stilling. With a few subtle movements, she invites Star-Bringer to another flanking attack.
Finally, those whose doom is etched in the trunk of the world tree arrive in a bolt of lightning and crash of thunder.
The hammer-wielder and his children sprintforth. Above, the borrowed shape of a crow slides in time through the air.
The horn-holder stands upon the ground, far-seeing gaze scanning over the battlefield; and the others—the silent one, the snow-glider, the messenger, the skald, the one-handed warrior, the keeper of justice—follow the spearhead, the grim joy of battle pounding within each of them to a man.
The great razored boar charges, holding aloft the mountain’s peak and the bearer of the valiant dead on her back.
Her work done, Yesen appears gradually to the treehouse like a beam of moonlight through the drawing back of a sheer curtain. Her toes light on the woven floor of the tern’s roost and then she sinks to her knees and then to her side, curling her knees to her chest. With


along so no one gets caught with their pants down.- For good measure he sends it to the Gathering Pack.

Morevuka sends acknowledgement.
And, along every shadow, the wolves lift back their heads and howl the news to those that ought to hear.

ST
The message passes along. The gods shift, moving around their quarry, their prey, their opponent, squaring their feet, digging their heels, bending their knees, taking flight.
A CRACK!: a fractured glacier if the glacier were the world, a breaking bone if the body lay beneath all the feet on the battlefield, a splitting rock if the rock consisted the entire ground.
And then the world shakes. Only the great behemoths remain unstaggered, new limbs sprouting to hold themselves steady.
And then stone erupts from the earth like a spine ripping freealmost disbeleif still. She hears the bell and looks up, returning the note to her bodice and greeting him with an oddly shy but welcoming smile. Stepping back from the central display table where she’d set up the bouquet-ception. She crooks her finger and makes her way up the stairs to the roof top room. Every few steps she glances back as if to check if he’s following. Each time she spots him her lips curve in a smile and she turns her gaze forward once again.

ST
When Derrick sees her, he takes in a slight breath to speak, but lets it rest when she pulls away and wordlessly beckons him forth. He follows, a little puzzled and slightly wary at first, but as she continues, throwing glances over


her shoulder which makes his heart stop slightly every time and smiling in a way that starts it again, the anticipation he had set aside since the night before finds a new home just under his ribs. Its heat spreads through him, inviting a steadily blooming smile despite himself.

Sanura
Sanura grins a little, the expression hidden behind hair she’d let down from it’s pins not long before his arrival. Reaching the top of the stairs she opens the door to the comfortable room and waits for him to enter. Her eyes flicking over him and a soft breath taken and held a moment. She marvled a little at the sense of uncertanty from him and then took a little joy as it shifts and changes into something else. Herfingertips on the door slowly push it closed with a slight click and she holds up the note between the tips of her index and middle fingers. A dark brow quirks upwards and she can’t resist a mock little moue as she tilts her head and steps towards him. “I’m glad to see you” she innitiates, dark blue eyes moving over his features meeting his eyes as she continues. “but … tsk a note?” she purses her lips as though dissapointed, her eyes giving her away.

ST
Derrick waits, watching her, pausing a little as she steps towards him to offer her playful chastisement. His growing smile spreads yet further and closes the rest of the distance, hands resting on her hips. “I thought it would be less pressuring that


Yes. Making Mitt Romney pay more in capital gains taxes would both help slow the alarming growth of inequality in the U.S. and, if offset by a decrease in the corporate tax rate, help keep capital and investment within our borders.

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The attention


Programs

2000 West Stanfield Rd.

Troy, Ohio 45373

Phone: (937) 339-5100

Fax: (937) 339-3256

Email: heather.lorenzo@mcapps.org

Piqua City Schools Psychological Services

School psychological services support families, school, and the community in meeting the academic and mental health needs of students.

The school psychologists:

Consult with parents, teachers, and other professionals to promote student well being and achievement.

The Piqua City School District joins districts across Ohio in ongoing efforts to identify, locate and evaluate children from birth to 21 years of age who may have disabilities. Public school districts are responsible for providing a “free and appropriate” public education to any child living in the district – including children with disabilities, regardless of the nature or extent of the disability. If you have a child, or are aware of a child, who may have a disability, you areparticipants performed a tactile localization task on their left hand under different visual conditions by means of a mirror box; in the mirror condition, a single stimulus was delivered on participants' hand, while the reflexion of the right hand was seen through the mirror; in the object condition, participants looked at a box through the mirror, and in the right hand condition, participants looked directly at their right hand. Participants reported the location of the tactile stimuli using a silhouette of a hand. Results showed a shift in the localization of the touches towards the tip of the fingers (distal bias) and the thumb (radial biases) across conditions. Critically, distal biases were reduced when participants looked towards the mirror compared to when they looked at their right hand


Mac, and Linux. You can edit hotkeys anytime by clicking F2 on your keyboard. Enjoy playing this game with Need for Speed Most Wanted 2012 Trainer

About FURY

FURY is a cracking group known for breaking the DRM protection. We released our content since 2006, having originated on the Amiga out of the ashes of Paranoimia. At 2007 we have released many things: trainers, games, generators and cracks. Although we were releasing many games, we truly became well known in the gaming community after cracking Ubisoft's first DRM version. Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic and Assassin's Creed II utilize this type of protection, and both have been cracked by FURY, among many other games.
Ubisoft's second DRM version has also been cracked by us, in games such as Fromwhich consists of the granular melphigian and basal cells. The stratum corneum is hygroscopic and requires at least 10% moisture by weight to maintain its flexibility and softness. The hygroscopicity is attributable in part to the water-holding capacity of keratin. When the horny layer loses its softness and flexibility it becomes rough and brittle, resulting in dry skin.
The dermis, which lies just beneath the epidermis, is 1.5 to 4 millimeters thick. It is the thickest of the three layers of the skin. In addition, the dermis is also home to most of the skin's structures, including sweat and oil glands (which secrete substances through openings in the skin called pores, or comedos), hair follicles, nerve endings, and blood and lymph vessels (Inlander, Skin, New York, N.Y.: People's Medical


in order potentially to mollify some of the signs of aging. These techniques range from facial moisturizers containing alpha hydroxy acids and retinol to surgical procedures and injections of neurotoxins.
One of the principal functions of skin is to provide a barrier to the transportation of water and substances potentially harmful to normal homeostasis. The body would rapidly dehydrate without a tough, semi-permeable skin. The skin helps to prevent the entry of harmful substances into the body. Although most substances cannot penetrate the barrier, a number of strategies have been developed to selectively increase the permeability of skin with variable success.
Botulinum toxins (also known as botulin toxins or botulinum neurotoxins) are neurotoxins produced by the gram-positive bacteria Clostridium botulinum. They act to produce paralysis of muscles by preventing synapticonce, not twice, but more times before acting," Smith told the deejay, while passing the sentence.

Brooks' attorney, Martyn Thomas, pointed out to the court that his client accepted the ruling and was remorseful for the events that led to him being arrested and charged.

"Having found him guilty, I'd like to urge upon you that the accused man has accepted the finding of the court and is willing to move on," Thomas said.

Brooks, who hails from West Armour Heights in St Andrew, was charged in connection with an incident on July 22, 2011, in which he and members of his entourage allegedly attacked the complainants - Henry Cunningham and his son, Oshane - and damaged their car along the Belmont main road in St James.

Following Monday's verdict, Brooks was


escorted from the courtroom by police officers to an adjoining holding area, where he was expected to remain until the fines were paid.

Could face suit

In the meantime, the Cunninghams may now pursue civil action against the deejay for damages from the July 22 incident, should they so choose. Thomas had indicated to the court after the verdict that Brooks was willing to pay compensation to the complainants.

"He (Brooks) has never denied hitting the complainant's car, and he has always wanted to compensate the complainant for damage to his car and for injuries he sustained that day," the attorney told the court.Sidwell given top honours by FourFourTwo

By Mark Sugar March 5 2005

Reading midfielder Steve Sidwell has been named the best player in the Football League by Four Four Two magazine.The former Arsenal player has impressed greatly since making the switch to the Madejski Stadium in January 2003 and looks set for the Premiership,with or without Reading as his club.

SIDWELL THE BEST

Former Arsenal and England U21 midfielder Steve Sidwell has
been named the best player in the Football League by Four Four Two magazine.

The tenacious player has been superb for the Royals since his £400,000 switch
from Arsenal in January 2003 and has been linked with moves away to Celtic,
Aston Villa, Rangers, Birmingham City and Charlton Athletic all keeping tabs on
the star who looks set for big things in the game.

His team-mate


SCP: Secret Laboratory is a multiplayer horror game, based on SCP – Containment Breach by Undertow Games (in 2012). To create this game, Unity engine was used to provide higher stability and more details. Still being in the beta phase, the game can contain a number of bugs and errors which are usually spotted by a large team of testers and fixed quickly after.

It is a completely free horror game based on SCP Foundation Creepypasta series. The Foundation focuses on protecting the world from any entity, object or phenomenon which exceeds the all-known idea of normal.

The underground facility suffers from multiple breaches from various SCP objects which escape their containment chambers. During this events chain, players are given roles to play:

Class-D Personnel – Prisoners kept for the purposeI also have sent the rifle divisions of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Shock Armies (the 2 and 3 will arrive on the next turns) to its assigned place: attacks towards Rzhev, Bryansk and west of Stalino (bypass the towns that is).

And still, somehow... I have gathered the "excess" of divisions east of Moscow... 50 Rifle Divisions + 56 Army (5 Rifle Divisions)... These forces will see combat much before the end of the blizzard. They may be an interesting reserve to reinforce the attacks here and there

Oh, and here is the most miserable Red Army unit It's not like they had to face the mighty panzers during the Blitzkrieg. Nice and quiet holidays up north, east of Lake Ladoga (7th Independent Army), hunting and playing accordions. Well,


startup company, WindSight, is a spinoff of Ann Arbor-based Michigan Aerospace, an engineering firm that has gradually diversified its technology portfolio in recent years. WindSight, led by Michigan Aerospace CEO Peter Tchoryk, is set to commercialize a wind-farm site assessment technology solution.

Together the two companies, albeit officially unrelated, underscore the Ann Arbor region's budding wind energy technology arsenal.

Accio President Dawn White, who founded successful Ann Arbor defense tech startup Solidica, said Accio aims to create a wind energy device that would generate double the electricity per square meter of traditional photovoltaic solar panels.

White said the device could ultimately present a way to harvest wind energy in locations where wind turbines aren't practical.

"Small wind turbines are very expensive for the amount of power you get out of them," WhiteTchoryk said. "That's really where we shine. We have a transformational product in that it's going to provide so much more information than is currently available."

Conference details

2009 Michigan Wind Energy Conference

• Organizer: Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association.

• Expected attendees: 1,000.

• Speakers include: Jim Walker; president of the American Wind Energy Association; Skip Pruss, director of Michigan's Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth; Keith Cooley, CEO of Detroit-based NextEnergy; Dawn White, president of Ann Arbor-based Accio Energy; Peter Tchoryk, CEO of Michigan Aerospace and leader of WindSight

• Location: Cobo Hall.

• Registration: www.glrea.org.

In the energy field, wind turbines have long been considered static technology. But Jennifer Alvarado, executive director of Dimondale-based Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, said that conception is misguided. GLREA is hosting the 2009 Michigan Wind Energy


completely map out the atmosphere," Tchoryk said.

"We can then forecast when the winds will actually arrive at the turbines, and that's very important for increasing efficiency and maintenance and for improving switching times."

Tchoryk said Windsight would offer a packaged solution - a laser-based sensor to make measurements and "computational fluid dynamics" software to analyze the results.

Boosting the economy

Tchoryk wouldn't discuss specifics of where WindSight would locate its headquarters. He also declined to discuss Michigan Aerospace's previously announced decision to locate an expansion unrelated to WindSight in the Battle Creek area.

For WindSight, the firm is likely still at least a year or two away from making products, if not more. Accio officially only has three employees right now, but the firm is working with experts at the University ofunlike in the detached home market in the largest cities, where it has long been the practice to keep driving until you can afford something, condo developers seem to have adopted a philosophy of shrinking units until they can meet consumer budgets and bite-sized investor appetite.

Condominium sizes have been shrinking for the past decade, at least up until the past two years. The average condominium in the Greater Toronto Area was 892 square feet in May 2007, based on remaining inventory at the time, but shrunk to 789 square feet by May 2015, according to data supplied by Altus Group to the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD).


PERRY INDICTED

posted by Jim Forsyth, photo credit Getty Images
-
2 years ago

A Travis County Grand Jury this afternoon indicted Gov. Rick Perry on charges in connection with his threat to use the arrest of the Travis County District Attorney to pressure the county to abolish the Public Integrity Unit, which investigates and prosecutes official state government misconduct, Newsradio 1200 WOAI reports.

The Public Integrity Unit has long been a thorn in the side of Texas Republicans, who have long felt that the largely Democratic County uses the unit to specifically harass Republicans with politically motivated investigations.

The first count, official oppression by a public servant, is a First Degree Felony, the most serious level in the state penal code, and is punishable by up to 99 years in prison

After DA Rosemaryand arrested three people. One of the arrested men was identified as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), a close aide of Osama bin Laden and the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US. The ISI handed him over to the US intelligence, which flew him initially to Diego Garcia and then to the Guantanamo Bay detention centre for Al Qaeda and other terrorist suspects in Cuba. Shortly thereafter, rumors started circulating that KSM had claimed during his interrogation that it was he who had killed Daniel Pearl.

4. In an article titled "Musharraf's Goose Getting Cooked" written by me on October 23,2003, which is available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers9/paper821.html , I had stated inter alia as follows:

"Oct. 22, 2003 | Last Thursday, a senior White House official called Mariane


Pearl and Paul Steiger, the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, to report a new, key development in the investigation into the death of Mariane's husband, Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. "We have now established enough links and credible evidence to think that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed" -- the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks -- "was involved in your husband's murder," the official told Mariane.

"What do you mean 'involved'?" Mariane asked.

"We think he committed the actual murder."

"So says a sensational article on the kidnapping and murder of Danial Pearl, the US journalist, written by Asra Q. Nomani, the free-lance journalist, then living in Karachi, in whose house Pearl and his wife Mariane had stayed when he went on his ill-fated trip to Karachi from Mumbai last year to investigatea report that an e-mail which had directed Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, to carry out his operation to blow up an American aircraft had originated from Karachi and that the e-mail had been sent by the Jamaat-ul-Fuqra, a Pakistani organisation with many sleeper cells in the USA, Canada and the West Indies, including in the US Armed Forces.

"In the year 2000, a mysterious web site calling for solidarity amongst the Muslims serving in the Armed Forces of the world suddenly appeared and started registering such Muslims. While it could not be definitively established as to who was behind the web site, Police sources in Pakistan suspected that the Fuqra cells in the USA were behind it. One does not know whether Pearl knew all this when he


arrived in Karachi, but his investigation, for as yet unknown reasons, was focussed on the background and activities of this organisation and its leaders.

"In the hundreds of reports -- open as well as confidential -- which had emanated from Pakistan till now on his murder, the name of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) had not figured. The Pervez Musharraf regime initially projected the murder as the work of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), which continues to be active despite the so-called ban, and then the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the banned Sunni extremist organisation, and then others.

"Omar Sheikh, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, who had been working for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) since the early 1990s and who used to head the Lahore cell of AL Qaeda, was ultimately blamed alongwith some others. The appeal filed by him against the death sentence awarded to him by the anti-terrorism court and by the other accused against the prison sentences awarded to them has not been heard so far. The hearing on the appeal is being repeatedly postponed on some ground or the other.

"Even as the hearing in the anti-terrorism court was on, the Pakistani media reported that the Pakistani authorities had in custody some other suspects, including some Yemeni-Balochis, who confessed to murdering Pearl. It was also reported that it was on their confession that the remains of Pearl were recovered by the Pakistani authorities.

"Under the law in any country, when material objects relating to a case are recovered on the basis of a confessional statement of a suspect,


originally from Wantstead, east London, was sentenced to death in 2002 for the kidnapping and beheading of Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter abducted in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamist militants.

"But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks on the US of September 11 2001 - said in a confession released by the Pentagon last week that it was he who killed Pearl.

"Sheik's lawyer, Rai Basheer Ahmed, who described his client's conviction as "a gross miscarriage of justice", said he planned to make an appeal based on Mohammed's confession.

"In the next court hearing, I am going to submit the recent statement by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in which he said he himself beheaded the US journalist," Mr Ahmed told Reuters. "From day one, mycontention was that the evidence presented in court was not strong enough to lead to the conviction of my client."

"Mohammed (KSM) admitted involvement in more than 30 attacks or plots during a hearing at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl," Mohammed said, according to a transcript of his statement.

"But intelligence experts are skeptical of Mohammed's confession. Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, said Mohammed, described as KSM by the US authorities, came across as "boasting, at times mentally unstable".

"Writing in Time magazine, Mr Baer said: "I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact


not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimises KSM's role."

"Mohammed, 42, a Pakistani brought up in Kuwait, was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and handed over to the Americans.

"In the transcript Mohammed claimed that Pearl, who had been investigating a trip made by Richard Reid, the would-be shoe-bomber, to Pakistan, had been working for the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

"Pearl disappeared in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in January 2002.

"The video of the killing, entitled The Slaughter of the Spy-journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl, shows a man cutting Pearl's head off. His severed head is then held up by the hair. In the transcript Mohammed says: "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on theinternet holding his head."

"Sheikh, who attended the private Forest school in Snaresbrook, east London and who dropped out of the London School of Economics, was sentenced to death while three co-accused were jailed for life.

"The convicts appealed to the Sindh provincial high court in July 2002. The government also appealed to the same court, asking for more severe penalties for the co-accused.

"But court hearings have been repeatedly postponed, mostly because of the absence of lawyers representing the convicts. Under Pakistani law, a convict has the right to appeal in superior courts but no case can be heard if lawyers of the convict are absent."

6.In a report titled "Suspects in Pearl case yet to be tried over fears of damaging testimonies", the "Dawn" of Karachi reported as follows on


September 23,2008:

"KARACHI, Sept 22: Two high-profile militants of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Attaur Rehman and Faisal Bhatti, who were picked up under suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, have remained in the custody of police and intelligence agencies for over six years without being charged, reportedly because their testimony may lead to a retrial of Shaikh Omar and his associates, who were found guilty of the kidnapping and murder in 2002.

"Sources in the intelligence agencies said that in addition to having been involved in several sectarian killings, Rehman (alias Naeem Bukhari) and Bhatti (alias Zubair Chishti) were believed to have arranged a location on the outskirts of Karachi, where they kept Pearl after he was kidnapped in January 2002, and subsequently handedthe victim over to some Arabs who eventually killed him.The two militants were picked up from the Nazimabad area in June 2002 but none of the law-enforcement agencies acknowledged their arrest until 2007. On June 29, 2002, the Sindh home department published an advertisement declaring Rehman and Bhatti to be most-wanted terrorists and announcing a collective reward for Rs6 million for their arrest.

"The pair’s relatives went to the Sindh High Court to challenge their illegal detention but the government insisted that neither of the men were under its custody. At the time these petitions were being heard, lawyer Aamir Mansoob Qureshi had quoted reports from the media that referred to the arrest of the men and the recovery of a large quantity of arms and ammunition from them.


acquittal of all the men already convicted. And if that had happened, our credibility would have been questioned by the whole world.”

"According to this officer, this was also the reason why the government did not initiate prosecution proceedings against one of the absconders in the Pearl murder case, Hashim Qadeer (alias Arif), who was formally arrested in August 2005 under suspicion of involvement in the Pearl case. Since then, however, he has remained incarcerated in a Karachi jail without having faced trial."

7.A report titled "US Journalist Daniel Pearl was Killed by 9/11 Mastermind" carried by the "Epoch Times" of the US on January 20,2011, stated as follows:

"The four men convicted in the murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, who was beheaded in Pakistan nine years ago, were involvedbut were not the killers, a report released on Thursday (January 20) says.

"The three-year-long probe into the Feb. 1, 2002 murder, conducted by Georgetown University’s The Pearl Project, concluded that in all, 27 men played a role in the capture and murder of the former Wall Street Journal bureau chief. Fourteen of them are still at large have taken part in other terrorist activities since, the report said. Another four of the 27 men are now dead, and five are detained or missing.

"The report concludes that Pakistani officials used false testimony to try and quickly close the case by pinning the actual murder on Omar Sheikh, who was the mastermind behind the operation but not the actual killer.

"British-born Sheikh and three other men were convicted of Pearl’s killing,


Ali, according to Human Rights Watch, was reportedly arrested in 2003 and held by the CIA until being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006 where he remains.

"Pearl was kidnapped when he was on his way to interview alleged “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, the man who attempted to blow up a passenger jet over the Atlantic Ocean.

“Pearl’s sad fate is well known, but details about the many players who perpetrated the crime have been shrouded—until now,” said William E. Buzenberg, the executive director of the Center for Public Integrity according to the report.

"Former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Q. Nomani and Georgetown University Journalism Director Barbara Feinman Todd together with 32 students conducted the research for the report."

8.It is learnt that Ms.Nomani's family had migrated to Pakistan fromHyderabad in India after 1947. She subsequently went to the US and reportedly worked for some months with Pearl in the New York office of the "Wall Street Journal." She subsequently resigned from the WSJ and went to Karachi to work on a research project. She continued to be in touch with Pearl and his wife Mariane. Pearl was transferred from New York to Mumbai to report for the WSJ from there. He, along with his wife, went to Karachi from Mumbai in January 2002 on a reporting assignment. It is believed they stayed with Nomani and that Pearl went for his ill-fated meeting with some individuals with whom he was in touch through E-mail from Mumbai but whom he had not known in a taxi. He never


returned from the meeting. He fell into a trap, was kidnapped and then murdered.

9.After his kidnapping, Omar Sheikh surrendered to Brig. (retd) Ejaz Shah, then serving as the Home Secretary of the Government of Punjab in Lahore. When he did so, Pervez Musharraf was on a visit to the US. During his interactions with officials and the media in the US Musharraf did not mention about the surrender of Omar Sheikh. Ejaz Shah handed over Omar to the ISI, which, in turn, handed him over to the Karachi police. The indications from Pakistani sources have been that while Omar orchestrated the trapping and kidnapping of Pearl, he was already in the custody of the Pakistani authorities when Pearl was allegedly murdered in custody by KSM.

10.There were thus twosub-conspiracies in the main conspiracy against Pearl. The first related to his kidnapping in which Omar was involved and the second relating to his murder which was carried out by KSM. Ejaz Shah was subsequently appointed by Musharraf as the head of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau. He left that post after Musharraf's exit as the President in 2009. Before Benazir Bhutto returned from political exile in October,2007, she had reportedly expressed fears that there could be a threat to her life from Ejaz Shah and Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the head of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJ). While no investigation was ordered by the Government of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani into the alleged role of Shah, Qari Akhtar was taken into custody by the police and interrogated. He was released


on the ground that there was no evidence against him.

11.Despite the painstaking work by Nomani and her colleagues, the mystery surrounding the kidnapping and murder of Pearl still remains unresolved. Many questions remain unanswered satisfactorily: Why was he targeted? Which individuals and organisations were involved in the conspiracy to kidnap him and in the subsequent conspiracy to kill him? Why they killed him? When did the ISI, the IB, and the Karachi Police come to know of the conspiracy---- before the kidnapping at the stage of planning or after he was kidnapped, but before his execution or after his execution? What was the role of Ejaz Shah in the case? Was Musharraf aware while he was in the US of the surrender of Omar to Ejaz? If so,intolerant brand of Sunni Islam called Deobandism.

This past June, Dawn, a leading English language daily in Pakistan, carried this headline: “Punjabi Taliban are a reality: Taseer.” The governor of the province of Punjab was taking a brave stand because the militants of these groups were born in his state in towns with names such as Bahawalpur and Raheem Yar Khan. But, with attacks on mosques, bazaars and police stations in Punjab, they were also killing his innocent citizens. Aasia Bibi, the Catholic woman sitting in jail for blasphemy, was one of the citizens of Punjab, and the call to kill her comes out of supporters of the Punjabi Taliban.

The best way for Pakistan to honor Taseer is to admit its homegrown militancy and destroy it. America and the


militant groups that make up the Punjabi Taliban have been tied to the 2008 Mumbai attacks. David Headley, the Pakistani-American who changed his name from Daood Sayed Gilani, was a point man for the Mumbai attacks and trained by Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the Punjab-based militant groups. Also, Pakistan security experts say the Punjabi Taliban work closely with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a group linked to the attempted 2010 Time Square bomb attack by U.S. citizen Faisal Shahzad, as well as with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The sad tale of the Punjabi Taliban and its destructive force is yet another story of Frankenstein’s monster returning to kill its creator. In the 19th century novel, Henry Frankenstein, the scientist who created the monster, is only saved when villagers destroy theWith the 1989 withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan, the Pakistani military and its intelligence unit, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate or ISI, redirected the Islamist fervor for jihad in the 1990s into the creation of militant organizations with their eyes set on liberating Kashmir from Pakistan’s enemy, India.

The home base for these groups: the province of Punjab, the military, religious and cultural heartland of the country.

Taseer’s alleged assassin, Qadri, was born in 1984 or 1985 outside Islamabad in the Punjab province, according to Pakistani media. Qadri grew up during the rising tide of militancy, becoming a member of Punjab’s elite force commandos. He had some telltale physical signs of a rigid practitioner of Islam. At such a young age, he had a darkened spot on his forehead, usually


militants, as Taseer bravely did. This summer, Taseer accused leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-N political party, run by former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, of having ties with the “Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab.” Sharif, a native of Punjab, considers the province his base.

Around that time, Interior Minister Rehman Malik denied he had accused the Punjabi Taliban of involvement in the attacks that month on two mosques in Lahore where members of the minority Ahmadi sect prayed. He denied he alleged that the provincial Punjab government was linked to the Punjabi Taliban. “I have never used a terminology which reflects provincialism, but people know with which names terrorists are being recognized. One can see these names on the internet and in national dailies,” Pakistani media quoted Malik as saying.

In fact,Pakistani media quoted him talking about the “Punjabi Taliban,” and earlier, Rehman had said the Punjabi Taliban support the TTP. Malik specifically identified Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, one of the militant organizations that falls under the umbrella of the Pakistani Taliban. It took responsibility for the attacks, as well as earlier attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in 2009 and the Punjab police headquarters in the city of Manawa, as well as other attacks. As our Pearl Project report will show, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was intricately involved in Danny’s kidnapping.

To be sure, Pakistan faces domestic political backlash if it attacks the militant organizations too aggressively because they have some support among the population. In a Pew survey, released just as Taseer and his fellow politicians debated whether the Punjabi Taliban


best campaign since the dawn of time,” once again bringing to mind the Dawn of Man sequence.

I could go on. The episode is full of talk of traveling to the moon: Between Don and Hawley, and between Roger and his daughter. This is appropriate to the period, of course, but the moon is also where modern man next encounters a monolith in 2001. (And the show’s interest in 2001 may extend beyond just this episode: As Sean Howe pointed out on Twitter, Brian Sanders, who was tapped to draw up the poster for Season 6, was also hired by Stanley Kubrick to document Kubrick’s work on 2001.)

So what do all these allusions add up to? First, they serve to reflect history at large in 1969: The dawn ofModern Britain

Gallery: Churches of North London

by Peter Kessler, 1 May 2011

St Giles-in-the-Fields is on the south-west
corner of St Giles High Street and Flitcroft Street. The first church
on this site was founded as part of a leper hospital by Queen Matilda
(wife of Henry I) in 1101. The chapel probably became the church for a
small village, which serviced the hospital, with the lepers screened off.
The hospital was dissolved in 1539 and its lands sold. The former chapel
became the parish church, and the first rector was appointed in 1547.

The earliest illustration shows a church with a round
tower, capped by a dome - itself replaced by a larger spire in 1617. Shortly
afterwards the church was considered ruinous and a Gothic brick church was
built between 1623-1630. Less than a century later, the new


church was itself
in a poor condition from damp, probably caused by the large number of Plague
victim burials. Henry Flitcroft built the present church in 1734. Inside is
Wesley's pulpit from West Street Chapel.

Soho Baptist Chapel is on the corner of Shaftsbury
Avenue and Mercer Street, immediately south of St Giles. Probably built in 1882,
this church is one of a handful that has been renamed twice. Few firm conclusions
can be drawn as to why the church has inscribed on it both Gower Street Chapel
and Shaftesbury Chapel as well as the current name. It is thought that it
may have been the centre of disputes amongst the early Baptist communities in
central London.

Christ Church lies on the western side of Endell
Street. The church was constructed in 1845 in the Early English style. It
stood closeto Bloomsbury Workhouse and gained its parish from part of that
of St Giles. It was declared redundant and closed in 1929. The parish was
re-united to St Giles, and part of the proceeds of the sale of the site went
towards building St Michael, Tokyngton, in north-west London. Christ Church's
furniture and fittings also went there.

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church is on the corner
of Bloomsbury Street and Bucknall Street. The building opened as Bloomsbury
Chapel on 5 December 1848, the first Baptist chapel to stand proudly on a
London street. Due to earlier restrictions on non-Anglican churches, and for
reasons of economy, meeting-houses had formerly been hidden down back alleys
and in upper rooms. Twin spires graced the towers until they were found to be
unsafe and removed in 1951.

The Church of St George Bloomsbury lies on
the


northern side of Bloomsbury Way, just east of the junction with New
Oxford Street. The Commissioners for the Fifty New Churches Act
of 1711 appointed Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil and former assistant
of Sir Christopher Wren, to design and build this church on land
purchased from the widow of Lord John Russell. The grand Baroque
church was consecrated in 1730 by Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London.

Despite the grandeur of Hawksmoor's design, the parish
vestrymen felt that his completed church did not provide sufficient
accommodation for the parish, so the church was re-orientated along a
north-south axis in 1781. In 1913, St Georgeís the church was the
setting for the memorial service for Emily Davison, the suffragette
who threw herself under the kingís horse in the Derby. From 1956-1968,
St Georgeís Bloomsbury served as the University of Londonís church.

St Georgethe Martyr Holborn occupies the south-west
corner of Queen Square and Cosmo Place in Bloomsbury, a short way north
of St George Bloomsbury. The church was built as a chapel of ease in 1704
and opened in 1706. It was quite simple and elegant in design, with a
beautiful grey stone tower. It gained its own parish in 1723. In 1867 it
was drastically altered by S S Teulon when a chancel was formed on the south
side (the north side is shown to the right of the photo).

At the same time, in 1867, the pews and most of the
galleries were removed, the windows enlarged and given new tracery, a
new spire was built and the insides refitted. Sometimes incorrectly
referred to as St George's Bloomsbury, the church now serves as a
community church in the Bloomsbury


and Holborn areas. It is noted for
its historic organ and many interior details, as well as its work with
the poorer members of the Bloomsbury community.

St John the Evangelist Red Lion Square formerly
stood on Red Lion Square, immediately to the north-east of Holborn
Underground station. The church itself probably occupied the space
opposite Dane Street, on the southern side of the present square.
The church was opened in 1875 and gained its parish from that of St
George the Martyr (above). It was rendered unusable by bombing in the
Second World War and in 1952 the parish was united to St George, Bloomsbury.built-up relationships,” a Democratic operative with extensive experience in Minnesota told Politico. “She makes practical sense, and she would be a good bridge builder.”

Under Dayton’s reported plan, Smith would serve only as a placeholder until a special election – held in November 2018 – which would give the people of Minnesota the opportunity to elect someone to serve the remaining two years of what was supposed to be Franken’s six-year term.

Various Democratic candidates that can compete in an open primary for the seat.

Franken was a rising star in the Democratic Party before accusations of sexual misconduct against him surfaced in November. In the ensuing weeks, more women came forward. At least right women have since detailed their stories of groping and forcible kissing. This led a flood of


Bernard Law Montgomery: Unbeatable and unbearable

Bernard Law Montgomery was one of the most prominent and successful British commanders of the Second World War (1939-45). Known as 'Monty', he notably commanded the Allies against General Erwin Rommel in North Africa, and in the invasions of Italy and Normandy.

Early career

Montgomery was born in London in 1887. He joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment after attending the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

In 1914, whilst fighting in the First World War (1914-18) he was shot through the right lung by a sniper, and nearly died. A grave was even dug in preparation for his body.

Fortunately, he made a full recovery and saw out the rest of the war as a Staff Officer during the Battles of the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917). Inthis capacity he observed the tactics used by generals like Sir Douglas Haig, and became critical of their readiness to accept high casualties during campaigns.

‘The frightful casualties appalled me. The so-called “good fighting generals” of the war appeared to me to be those who had a complete disregard for human life.’
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery,
1958

When Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, Montgomery was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force and commanded the 3rd Division.

He predicted the operation would be a disaster, and so trained for tactical retreat, something that proved vital during the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940.

Montgomery was nicknamed 'Monty' by his troops, although they never addressed him that way in person!

El Alamein

In 1942 Prime Minister Winston Churchill appointed Montgomery commander of the Eighth


Army in the Western Desert. Montgomery rapidly restored the army's flagging morale and ensured that his army was properly supplied. For nearly two months Montgomery continued to train and re-equip his army.

‘I want to impose on everyone that the bad times are over, they are finished! Our mandate from the Prime Minister is to destroy the Axis forces in North Africa... It can be done, and it will be done!’
Montgomery promising his troops a swift victory,
1942

Montgomery effectively organised the defence of El Alamein against the German forces led by General Erwin Rommel. He countered both Italian and German attacks, before delivering the Allies their first major land victory of the war at the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942.

This was a turning point in the NorthAfrican campaign and indeed the Second World War.

Montgomery's rivalry with Rommel was so fierce, that he even named his pet spaniel after him. Monty also had another dog, a fox terrier named Hitler.

Montgomery also played a crucial role in the Allied invasions of Sicily and then Salerno in Italy during 1943, in spite of disagreements with US Generals Patton and Bradley, who both viewed his previous successes jealously.

North West Europe

In June 1944 Montgomery commanded all the ground forces taking part in the Allied invasion of Normandy. Despite setbacks, his skilful planning entrapped and defeated the German forces at the Falaise Pocket.

Later Montgomery convinced US General Dwight Eisenhower to agree to his planned invasion of the Low Countries and the Ruhr: Operation Market Garden.

Monty’s invasion plan failed due to


large number of German armoured units in the region, which caused disastrous losses.

But he redeemed himself with his excellent command during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, shoring up American defences with 30 Corps, and permitting the deployment of reserves that turned the battle.

‘General Montgomery is a very able, dynamic type of army commander. I personally think that the only thing he needs is a strong immediate commander. He loves the limelight but in seeking it, it is possible that he does so only because of the effect upon his own soldiers, who are certainly devoted to him. I have great confidence in him as a combat commander. He is intelligent, a good talker, and has a flair for showmanship.’
US General Dwight D Eisenhower,
1943

After overseeing themeticulously-planned Rhine crossings of March 1945, Montgomery’s troops advanced into Germany.

He accepted the surrender of all German forces in Denmark, northern Germany and the Netherlands on 4 May 1945.

Montgomery and Churchill inspecting Allied troops in Berlin in 1945

Viscount of Alamein

After the war, Montgomery was made 1st Viscount of Alamein in 1946 and Commander of the British Army in the Rhine in Western Germany.

In later life he was involved in several personal controversies, like voicing support for apartheid in South Africa, speaking against the legalisation of homosexuality and criticizing US tactics in Vietnam. His personal memoir published in 1958 was particularly inflammatory, as he criticised many of his wartime colleagues, including the then US President Dwight Eisenhower.

‘The United States has broken the second rule of war. That is: don't


go fighting with your land army on the mainland in Asia. Rule one is, don't march on Moscow. I developed those two rules myself.’
Montgomery on the American War in Vietnam, 'New York Times',
1968

Unbearable?

Montgomery was arrogant, unlikeable but ultimately successful. He famously lacked diplomacy skills and tact when dealing with others, but this directness made him a great military leader.

One example of his difficult personality is when US Major General Bedell Smith bet Monty that British forces would not capture Sfax by 15 April 1943. Montgomery won the wager when Sfax fell on 10 April, and demanded an American bomber to use as his personal transport.

Unfortunately, Smith had made the wager in jest and only pandered to Monty’s 'crass stupidity' at Eisenhower’s bidding.

Despite his complex character, Montgomery remains oneof the best-known generals of the Second World War, and one of the British Army’s greatest ever commanders.

His most unconventional claim to fame however is in lending his name in part to the comedy troop ‘Monty Python’. Who - only sometimes - claim they selected ‘Monty’ in mocking tribute to the legendary Second World War general!

Montgomery died in Isington, Hampshire on 24 March 1976 and his statue stands outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall.

Montgomery commemorative mug, 1976

Monty was notoriously vain. When asked once to name three great generals he replied: ‘The other two would be Alexander the Great and Napoleon.’

Explore further

Story

The struggle for North Africa

The bitter struggle that rolled back and forth across the North African desert was the first major Allied victory of the Second World


War.

Second Battle of El Alamein

Fought in October-November 1942, this was the climax and turning point of the North African campaign of the Second World War. The armies of Italy and Germany suffered a decisive defeat by the British Eighth Army.

Normandy campaign

Operation Market Garden

In September 1944 the Allies launched a daring airborne operation to cross the Rhine and advance into northern Germany. Although it ultimately failed, Market Garden remains one of the Second World War’s most famous battles.who doesn’t like a lot of noise. Boots are most loathsome to her. She believes they indicate her demise is at hand. Jamima jumps at the slightest disturbance – one time jumping two feet straight up in the air when she was touched slightly on her back. She flees from the smallest bug as well.

She also believes that she should be submissive to the elder and larger cat, Pippen. She always lets him eat first, lets him come inside first, and lets him win every battle. I’ve told her that females have rights and that she doesn’t have to play second fiddle to Pippen, but she strongly believes it is her place to make way for him.She is also an Introvert. She will stand at an empty bowl


idea straight through your head right now,” he said in an even tone while applying consecutive hard swats to her tight, round behind.

Lexi bucked and squealed as she tried to roll off of his lap, but he shifted her over one knee and anchored her with his other strong leg. She never thought his hand would hurt that much right through her pants, but this was obviously not a playful romp.

It was the real deal.

And now the blurb:Twenty-year-old
Lexi Roberts has barely begun her new job as an emergency room secretary in Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida, when the city is thrown into panic by a serial killer who
targets young women. Thankfully for Lexi, her handsome, kind-hearted boss, Dr. Raul
Morales, takes it upon himself to ensure that she reaches home safely after
eachcame in, and since you’re in the perfect position for it…”

And now the blurb:

Twenty-year-old
Lexi Roberts has barely begun her new job as an emergency room secretary in Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida, when the city is thrown into panic by a serial killer who
targets young women. Thankfully for Lexi, her handsome, kind-hearted boss, Dr. Raul
Morales, takes it upon himself to ensure that she reaches home safely after
each shift.

Raul can be as strict as he is caring, however, and when Lexi disobeys him and
puts herself in danger he bares her bottom and spanks her thoroughly. Yet in
spite of her embarrassment at being punished in such a humiliating fashion, she
quickly finds herself aching for Raul's touch, and before long she is calling
him daddy and loving every moment she spends in his arms. But


torso, he took
hold of her wrists and pulled them over her head. With piercing eyes
locked onto hers, his steamy gaze communicated that this wasn’t a game.
It was the real thing for him.

As he rubbed his surging cock up and down
the hot, soaking slit of her sex, Lexi’s legs spread further in
supplication, silently begging him to sink into her heated core. Pulling
back one more time to look into her eyes, his lips finally seared onto
hers with a fevered possessiveness, his thick sword edging into her
tight sheath, the strokes building mightily. Slow and deliberate, his
strides were steady and deep-seated over and over, her moans quickly
escalating to groans until he felt her clench and flutter around his
hard shaft. Thrusting into her one final time, he ground his pelvis hard
against hers andAbstract. Situated in the southwest of Saudi Arabia, Mecca is considered the spiritual capital of one and a half billion worldwide Muslims. The city is visited by millions of pilgrims every year. It has undergone significant changes in land cover (LC) since the government first embarked on a series of ambitious development projects 20 years ago to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims and citizens. The main objective of our study is to detect, identify, analyze and measure the evolving land cover and urban morphology composition from multi-temporal satellite images. To characterize the morphological change during a period of twenty years, four satellite images, acquired in 1998 by Landsat TM and in 2003, 2008 and 2013 by Landsat ETM+, were classified into five main categories: Urban, Street, Soil


and Vegetation. In addition, DEM has been extracted and included as Mountain. Change detection (CD) analysis is applied using post-classification comparison and GIS. As part of the study, morphological index, such as, Entropy is included for better understanding of urban structures behaviour. Mecca and its surroundings show a noticeable increase in urban and vegetation cover. Urban cover (UC) changes were divided into five radial directions: Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, East, and Northwest. These changes are influenced by mountain ranges surrounding the city and the highways. These revelations can play a significant role towards future planning and development activities, which may further promote urban growth.withdraw his January 19, 1981 pleas of guilty to two indictments, and for vacatur of the sentence entered thereon.

2
On October 31, 1980, appellant Michael Paradiso was indicted in the Eastern District of New York on a two-count indictment for his role in the alleged gunpoint robbery and hijacking of two tractor-trailer trucks containing 500 bags of Colombian coffee.  If convicted on the first count (obstructing and delaying commerce, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951), appellant could have been sentenced to a twenty-year term of imprisonment and a $10,000 fine; on the second count (unlawful theft of goods worth more than $100 moving in interstate and foreign commerce, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 659), the maximum punishment upon conviction was a ten year term


Post by admin on Mar 29, 2004 7:21:43 GMT -5

Has anyone been to a good show lately? I saw the Allman Brothers last night playing their last night of the year at the Beacon Theatre in NYC. It was AWESOME! After a night with many special guests, Mike Mattison (the singer from the Derek Trucks Band) sang a song, the next song had Mike Gordon (from Phish) on bass! Derek rocked out (I am a huge fan of him and his solo band) and his wife played slide on a song too! The encore was a great rendition of Derek's version of Bock to Bock that seemed to last forever, but the best part was meeting Mike Mattison on the subway after the show! What a night! Toobad the Allmans wont be at the 'roo this year, they were great last june!

Post by lunaladybug on Mar 29, 2004 7:32:34 GMT -5

I just saw the Chemical Brothers friday night in new york. Awesome show! They weren't actually playing their own music, just spinning but they were great, and it was a very cool time. Oh, I'll be seeing Crystal Method this Friday. Can't wait!

Post by ka mai on Mar 29, 2004 9:09:59 GMT -5

I saw the Slip in Chicago this past weekend. Amazing show.

I had heard a little bit of their music before but didn't realize there was such a strong jazz influence. The chops on all three of them are really amazing, and I love the changes in tone from jazz to rock and in


30, 2004 11:25:40 GMT -5

Derek Trucks-- now there is musical genetic engineering if ever there was one. and what promise for future generations in their baby...Derek Trucks for a father and Susan Tedeschi for a mother! I hope my 70 year old body will still be a Rooing when he plays at the 20th BRoo!!!! I think Drive by Truckers are scheduled to play at Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga a few days after BRoo, so they will be in the area if there isn't an excusivity rider in their contract with Riverbend.SawDDBB a couple of weeks ago in the Nooga.

Post by PrinceCaspian on Apr 26, 2004 12:10:28 GMT -5

I went to the Spring Weekend Party at Colgate Universiety and saw The Wailers, Tim Reynolds and this awesome band'slated' timeslot. They played another fifteen minutes with their stage amplifiers and no vocals. Sometime during the last 30 minutes of the show, Bootsy lost his balance and fell down after a small push from George. He was carried of stage in someone's arms, but the show went on... someone was already picking up a bass when Bootsy was floored.

Post by Funktopus on May 7, 2004 12:57:46 GMT -5

I've seen Daimen Rice and Violent Fems recently. Both were awesome shows. Daimen Rice played at Bogarts up the street from me and that set kicked so much a$$. I can't wait to see him again. Violent Fems played in Columbus, only show this year, they kept calling it their "Great American Tour." You could tell they were having a


Anatomy Of A Cloud Migration: Inside The Channel Company's IT Transformation

Pages

Shortly before the Thanksgiving break, the migration team began its step-by-step process to move each employee from the UBM network to the new TCC (The Channel Company) network. And the first step was migrating to a new Office 365 Outlook email server and email accounts.

"That was an easy one," Brown said. "It went largely as planned."

The migration team focused on one office location at a time, starting with The Channel Company's Irvine, Calif., office as the test case just before Thanksgiving and continuing through the first week of December.

Once the email conversion was completed, the migration team wasted no time; the following week the team began to move each workstation to the new The Channel Company cloud platformfolders during the process.

"The Channel Company was deeply integrated with UBM, and that was a huge challenge," said Hall. "The integration was deep, it was down to the file level, so it was like going into a veggie omelet and trying to take out just one type of vegetable."

And as the saying goes, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. As the team migrated each employee workstation to the new TCC data center platform (a process that took about 30 minutes per machine), there were more wrinkles. For example, the previously mentioned Windows XP systems had to be replaced with new systems because XP didn't support Office 365. In addition, there were issues with migrating some Mac systems.

But by mid-December, The Channel Company was completely


off UBM's network, and all data folders and file servers were transferred to The Channel Company cloud platform; to speed up the transfer, The Channel Company bought new NAS systems and shipped them to the Atlanta data center. And at that point more than half of employee workstations had been migrated to The Channel Company platform, too.

"Getting off the UBM network and getting our own platform live was a big milestone," Brown said.

By Christmas virtually all workstations were migrated from UBM's software and systems. GreenPages/Logics One also set up new wireless networks for each office and began rolling out its IT support and help desk services for The Channel Company. The Channel Company had a new Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform, cloud-based office and ERP applications, and had shed most ofits IT infrastructure costs in the span of just a few short months.

"We extracted the Channel Company from UBM and stood it up like a brand-new startup," Hall said. "It was like getting a body transplant. We took an established company that had been around for 40 years and put it in the body of a 17-year-old."

But there was still more work to be done.

FINAL HURDLES AND THE FUTURE

After a brief break for the holidays, it was back to work. With the TCC data center platform live and all employee workstations migrated, attention turned to website hosting. Throughout January the migration team transferred dozens of websites such as The Channel Company's new home page and XChange Events' website, from UBM servers to new Rackspace servers.

By the time February


arrived, every website and URL was off UBM's infrastructure except one: CRN.com.

The flagship site of The Channel Company was not only being migrated to a new hosting destination, but the site was getting an extreme makeover as well, thanks to a new design and content management system. In addition, the CMS for the iPad and Windows 8 tablet apps had to be integrated with the new website CMS and re-launched -- at the same time.

But on Feb. 5, the new CRN.com and its CMS went live with virtually no downtime or interruptions. "We did the Web hosting transition piece by piece," Brown said, "and CRN was the biggest piece."the final two minutes of the game, where he ran the ball on a first down. After a minimal gain, he was again delegated to the sideline where he remained for the rest of the game.

While Rex Ryan and Tony Sparano likely enjoy the time opponents spend preparing for their mysterious and over-hyped Tebow packages, week after week it becomes more and more evident that the Jets have no intention of using their specialty offense, even in situations where it seems to make sense.

More talk about the Jets use of Tebow will continue as long as he remains on the roster (which, according to the Jets front office, will be for the duration of his contract), but for now, any further speculation just seems futile.


Fall Of The Stone City

Fall Of The Stone City

In September 1943, German soldiers advance on the ancient gates of Gjirokaster, Albania. It is the first step in a carefully planned invasion. But once at the mouth of the city, the troops are taken aback by a surprising act of rebellion that leaves the citizens fearful of a bloody counter-attack. Soon rumours circulate, in cafes, houses and alleyways, that the Nazi Colonel in command of the German Army was once a school acquaintance of a local dignitary, Doctor Gurameto. In the town square, Colonel von Schwabe greets his former classmate warmly; in return, Doctor Gurameto invites him to dinner. The very next day, the Colonel and his army disappear from the city. The dinner at Gurameto's house changes thecourse of events in twentieth-century Europe. But as the citizens celebrate their hero, a conspiracy surfaces which leads some to place Gurameto - and the stone city - at the heart of a plot to undermine Socialism. Enigmatic and compelling, The Fall of the Stone City displays Ismail Kadare at the height of his considerable powers.

Author description

Ismail Kadare is the author of The Accident, Chronicle in Stone, The Siege and The Successor.


Media reports out of France indicate that explosions have just taken place at two chemical plants in the southern city of Tououse.  The main explosion reportedly took place at a plant that manufactures fuel for Arianespace, the European Space Agency's commercial arm.  Explosions have also been reported at a plant owned by Groupe SNPE, which manufactures propellants and explosives.  The incidents are reported to have involved deaths at the scene.

We have yet to acquire independent confirmation of the explosions, or whether terrorism is suspected.  We are in touch with military and intelligence sources, and will provide updates.which included the name of the lock up where they discovered the rucksack and its contents.

In all, cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and mephedrone worth nearly £6,000 and nearly £10,000 in cash was found.

Prosecutor Gavin Howie told Manchester Crown Court how shop worker Crawford, originally from Belfast, appeared to be ‘testing the market’ by selling drugs for Hobin according to text messages between the pair uncovered by police,

Hobin, who worked as an HGV driver for Argos, had started taking drugs when she was 18 as she was ‘struggling to come to terms with her sexuality and had difficulties with her father’, said Joanna Rodkiss, defending.

Hobin, of Ashton-under-Lyne, was jailed for 18 months after she pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing drugs with intent to supply.

The judge, Mr Recorder Winston


Hunter QC, dismissed pleas to hand down a community sentence, ruling that ‘this defendant was substantially involved in the supply of drugs in the city centre of Manchester within the community with which she identifies herself, namely the gay and lesbian community and the club culture of Manchester’.

Holmes, also of Ashton-under-Lyne, admitted the same charges but she was handed a twelve-month suspended prison sentence. She had a ‘very limited role’, said the judge. She was also ordered to carry out 100 hours unpaid work and was handed a six-month supervision order.

Crawford, from Salford, was jailed for nine months after he admitted two counts of possession of drugs with intent to supply and one count of possessing drugs. He had been an ‘active participant with Hobin’, according to theMonday, January 4, 2016

Navy Pier || Nautical Winter with Unique Vintage

There is a certain mood that a winter's sun creates on a brisk day, and such was the feeling on our walk to Navy Pier a few weeks ago. Built in 1916, this historic place was the largest pier in the world at the time and was made for both shipping and entertainment. In the 1920's, it's title was "summer playground" with an average of 3.2 million annual visitors attracted to the dance halls, picnic areas and theater. Throughout the 1930's it's popularity continued with the World's Fair bringing tourists and travelers from all over.

To match this sunny winter day by the water, I wore a nautical-inspired red & blue ensemble from Unique Vintage. The Winifred Fishtail Skirt


fell 42%.

Soon, that will include Maria Sanchez, 52, who rides the Metro Line 16 bus to reach the homes she cleans in Beverly Grove.

When her family lived in Westlake, her commute was easier. Rising rents pushed them to El Monte. Now, she spends more than three hours a day on the bus.

“Every day is long,” Sanchez said, as the bus crawled down 3rd Street in rush-hour traffic. She was recently hired to clean another home, she said, and she and her husband are saving the extra income for a car.

Experts have urged Metro to focus on improving a dozen workhorse bus lines that have accounted for more than one-third of its ridership losses this decade. Those lines have shed nearly 30 million trips along major corridors, including Sunsetand Wilshire boulevards, and Western and Vermont avenues.

Trips on the Line 66 bus, which Esparza rides from Boyle Heights to downtown on the first leg of her journey to CSUN, have fallen by half. Some passengers have shifted to the Gold Line, which opened to Boyle Heights in 2009. Others have left transit altogether.

Erick Huerta got around L.A. for three decades on the bus and his bicycle. When he took a job at a nonprofit in South L.A. four years ago, he tried for months to find a reliable, predictable way to get from Boyle Heights without driving — but often wound up waiting for half an hour or more in the sun, or arriving at work sweaty and late.

He and his girlfriend eventually pooled their money and


For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

After September 11, many Americans were compelled to give blood, write checks to the Red Cross, or even to join the military as a way of serving the country. Apparently, though, an awful lot of us were also moved to show up for jury duty. This revelation comes courtesy of U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young, who recently addressed the Florida Bar Association on the death of the jury trial. Young noted that nationwide data (which he unfortunately didn’t cite) show that Americans turned up for jury service in record numbers in the year after the towers fell.

Young is most famous recently for sentencing shoebomber Richard Reid by telling himWorld News

Obama, the first African American president of the United States, said he had emphasised the need for religious tolerance and the right to practice one's own faith during closed door talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his last trip to India in 2015. Read More »

The annual US-South Korean drill, called Vigilant Ace, will run until Friday, with six F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to be deployed among the more than 230 aircraft taking part. With the U.S.' calling the other countries to sever the ties with Pyongyang, it will be interesting to see how Kim Jong-un will respond in the coming days. Read More »

Chief Magistrate at West minister Magistrate's Court Emma Arbuthnot will now hear the case Presented by Britain's Crown Prosecution Services on behalf


of the Indian government and the United Kingdom defence prosecution. The trial will continue on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th of December. A judgment in the case is unlikely to take place until early next year. Read More »

Portugal is a great team. Del Bosque's Spain broke Portuguese hearts twice en route to winning the World Cup in 2010 and in a tense penalty shootout in the semi-finals of Euro 2012 when Ronaldo was made to pay for wanting to take the final penalty as his opportunity never came. Read More »

No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!' In a post on Twitter, Trump said Republicans needed Moore to win in order to secure votes on key issues such as immigration even as other Republicanshave backed away from the candidate. "And look, you have to look at him also". "There is no need for anyone at the Washington Post to ever reach out to the Roy Moore campaign again because we will not respond to anyone from the Post now or in the future", Moore campaign strategist Brett Doster told the ... Read More »

Harris pleaded the court to adjourn the hearing until the high court's decision. The cases were registered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8 against Sharif, his family in the Accountability Court Islamabad , following a verdict by Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case. Read More »

Clearly, the moment wasn't lost on him, or the thousands of others who shared the heartwarming moment, including the


Words With Friends account itself. And last week that got to meet for the very first time. The meeting was made possible by Amy Butler, a pastor of Riverside Church in New York's Morningside Heights whose daughter is friends with Spencer. Read More »

The phone call comes amid media reports that U.S. President Donald Trump was preparing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday. The possible move by US President Donald Trump to announce al-Quds the capital of the Israeli regime would be tantamount to a blatant violation of global law and United Nations resolutions that describe al-Quds as an occupied city, Khaled Qadoumi told the Tasnim News Agency. Read More »

Harry faces a murder charge and multiple counts of assault, reckless endangerment and criminalpossession of a weapon. A call to the hookah bar went unanswered on Sunday morning. Police in NY have arrested and charged a local 22-year-old man with murder and other crimes after he allegedly stabbed two people and then drove into a group of pedestrians on a sidewalk, apparently angry about a parking dispute. Read More »

The decision comes as axed Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont faces an extradition hearing in Belgium, where he escaped to after his region's parliament declared independence on October 27, claiming he would not get a fair trial back home. Puigdemont, Junqueras and other former ministers are candidates for the elections. The ballot on December 21 is shaping up as a referendum between those for and against independence. Read More »

Lucie police announced. She