A gunman shooting at random people and locations killed four people Tuesday in Northern California, attacking an elementary school and a woman driving her children to school during the rampage, authorities said.

This latest burst of gunfire to terrorize a community – which followed deadly mass shootings in Nevada and Texas – unfolded without an immediate explanation, as the gunman spewed bullets across what police described as “a very widespread area.”

Ten people were injured and taken to area hospitals, including at least two children, one of whom was at the elementary school, police said. No children were among those killed in the shooting, which ended when law enforcement officers, responding to the carnage, fatally shot the attacker.

Even as authorities described a gunman leaving a bloody trail through the rural community, they also warned that the horror, “as tragic and as bad as it is, could have been so much worse,” as Phil Johnston, an assistant sheriff in Tehama County, told reporters.

When the gunman arrived at Rancho Tehama Elementary School on Tuesday morning, he rammed the fence and marched onto the grounds wielding a semiautomatic rifle and wearing a vest embedded with additional clips, Johnston said. But the gunman was unable to enter the classrooms because school officials had heard gunfire and immediately locked down the premises, Johnston said.

The attacker fired dozens of rounds at the school, officials said, shooting out windows and through the walls of classrooms, injuring at least one student with gunfire and others with broken glass. However, because he could not get inside, the shooter abandoned the school after about six minutes and went elsewhere, said Johnston, praising school officials who “saved countless lives and children.”

The bloodshed began shortly before 8 a.m., Johnston said.

Police received “multiple 911 calls of multiple different shooting sites, including the elementary school” in Rancho Tehama Reserve, a small area about 135 miles north of Sacramento, he said.

“It was very clear early on that we had a subject that was randomly picking targets,” Johnston said.

Police did not immediately identify a motive for the attack, though they said it was apparently preceded by a dispute the gunman had with a neighbor.

The sheriff’s office declined to name the gunman, saying his family had not been notified, but the Associated Press and other news reports identified him as Kevin Neal. The Washington Post has not independently confirmed his identity.

A woman the AP Press identified as the gunman’s mother said her son was working as a pot farmer and had recently married his longtime girlfriend. She said he grew up in Raleigh, N.C., before moving to California.

In her last few talks with her son, this woman told the AP he sounded desperate and despairing over his relationship with his neighbors, who he said were cooking meth and creating fumes that were harming his nine dogs.

The gunman was arrested and charged in January with assaulting a neighbor – an unnamed woman – with a deadly weapon. She was among the victims killed Tuesday, said Johnston, who declined to identify her or a man found dead in the same area.

Earlier Tuesday, Johnston had said police were told by neighbors that “there was a domestic violence incident” involving the gunman, who had a residence in Rancho Tehama. A restraining order had been issued against the shooter, Johnston said, but he did not know the specifics of the order.

“This is an individual that armed himself, I think with the motive of getting even with his neighbors, and I think when it went that far, he just went on a rampage,” Johnston said.

The gunman’s wrath was indiscriminate, according to the sheriff’s office. He fired at homes as he passed and, at one point, intentionally crashed into a vehicle with other people in it, only to begin shooting at them as they got out, killing one, Johnston said.

In another apparently random encounter, a woman was driving her children to school when she crossed paths with the attacker. He “opened fire on them without provocation or warning,” severely injuring her and wounding one of her children, Johnston said.

“She told me that she doesn’t know this person, never seen this person, does not know why he started shooting at her,” Johnston said. “She was just passing by him.”

The gunman also did not have any apparent connection to the elementary school or anyone inside it, Johnston said, and “chose the school as a random target.” One boy at the school was shot and wounded when the gunman fired from outside, Johnston said. School officials said that student was in stable condition.

“It’s a very sad day for us here in Tehama County,” Johnston said.

Brian and Tiffany Rodgers, who own the shop Coffee Addiction, can normally hear kids laughing at the elementary school less than a mile away. On Tuesday morning, they heard gunfire.

“When I heard the shots I could tell, I know my guns, I knew it was an automatic rifle,” Tiffany Rodgers said. “I could hear the kids screaming. You could hear the trauma.”

Brian Rodgers said he recognized the shooter, who had been fighting with his neighbors for “a long time over piddly stuff,” such as burning garbage.

Before the attack on the school, Coy Ferreira, 32, whose daughter is a kindergartner there, said he heard what he thought were fireworks. Then the 8 a.m. whistle blew three times, even though it was not 8 a.m., and a school official ordered everyone to rush inside because there was a gunman, Ferreira said.

Still wearing their backpacks, children in one classroom hid under their desks and then were told to huddle in a teacher’s office, Ferreira said. Three students appeared too frightened to run back, Ferreira said.

The gunman – visible out the window, wearing green camouflage, Ferreira said – fired a volley of bullets at the classroom’s windows. When the shooter moved on to the next room, students who had remained under their desks were told to run back to the office with others, but one child wasn’t moving, Ferreira said. He had been shot in the chest and leg.

The other teachers came out to try to stop the bleeding, and the boy was eventually taken to the hospital, Ferreira said.

“That’s when he started crying that he wanted to go home and be with his mommy,” he said. “He didn’t want to go to the doctor . . . this 5-year-old shot twice.”

Ferreira said he told his daughter that she was smart and a good listener for doing what she was told. “She said, ‘Daddy, you told me there would be no bad people at school,’ ” Ferreira recalled, “and how am I supposed to answer her?”

The ages of those killed and wounded were not immediately released by authorities.

Enloe Medical Center said it received five patients from the shooting, three of whom were treated and released Tuesday. Two remained hospitalized by the afternoon, according to a hospital spokeswoman. While the victims’ ages were not immediately available, the hospital had said earlier it was treating at least three children.

When law enforcement officers found the gunman, he was chasing and firing at another vehicle, Johnston said. An officer rammed his car, forcing it off the road, and the attacker exchanged shots with the officers, who killed him, ending his rampage.

After the shooting, Johnston said police recovered a semiautomatic rifle and two handguns believed to be used by the shooter. The FBI dispatched teams to help local authorities respond to the shooting, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also sent special agents.

The shooting rampage in California comes as many are still struggling with the psychic and physical wounds left behind by recent mass shootings at other seemingly safe places across the country.

Last week in Texas, a gunman attacked a small church outside San Antonio during Sunday morning services, killing 26 people and injuring 20 others. A month earlier, a gunman in a high-rise Las Vegas hotel suite opened fire at a country-music festival far below, killing 58 and injuring hundreds more in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

This latest public attack happened in Rancho Tehama Reserve, a rural subdivision described on its website as “a quiet private country community in the heart of Tehama County, California.”

Gov. Jerry Brown, D, said in a statement that he and his wife were “saddened to hear about today’s violence in Tehama County, which shockingly involved schoolchildren. We offer our condolences to the families who lost loved ones and unite with all Californians in grief.” Vice President Mike Pence posted in a message on Twitter that the White House would monitor the situation, provide federal support and “pray for comfort & healing for all impacted.”

After the gunfire, worried parents were trying to get to their children at the school, according to a reporter with Action News Now, a local news operation.

The school will be closed until further notice, to allow law enforcement agents to complete their investigation and to make repairs. The district will make other arrangements for teaching students.

“There was an active shooter out there earlier this morning,” said Jeanine Quist, an administrative assistant with the Corning Union Elementary School District. “There were some confirmed injuries.”

Speaking at about 10:30 a.m. local time, Quist said parents were able to get to the school to see their children.

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For the past year, Amazon employees have been test driving Amazon Go, an experimental convenience store in downtown Seattle. The idea is to let consumers walk in, pick up items and then pay for them without ever standing in line at a cashier. Amazon is vague on the mechanics, but the store relies on a mobile app and some of the same sensing technology that powers self-driving cars to figure out who is buying what.

Employees have tried to fool the technology. One day, three enterprising Amazonians donned bright yellow Pikachu costumes and cruised around grabbing sandwiches, drinks and snacks. The algorithms nailed it, according to a person familiar with the situation, correctly identifying the employees and charging their Amazon accounts, even though they were obscured behind yellow polyester.

Amazon Go represents Amazon’s most ambitious effort yet to transform the brick-and-mortar shopping experience by eliminating the checkout line, saving customers time and furthering the company’s reputation for convenience. The push into groceries is a way for the company to get consumers to shop at Amazon more often. The e-commerce giant unveiled Amazon Go last December, saying it planned to open the store to the public early this year. However, the company encountered technical difficulties and postponed the launch to work out the bugs, The Wall Street Journal reported in March.

Seven months later, challenges remain, but the “just walk out” technology has improved markedly, says the person, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the project. And in a sign that the concept is almost ready for prime time, hiring for the Amazon Go team has shifted from the engineers and research scientists needed to perfect the platform to the construction managers and marketers who would build and promote the stores to consumers. Amazon declined to comment.

Shoppers visiting an Amazon Go store will scan their smartphones upon entering. Cameras and shelf sensors will then work together to figure out which items have been removed and who removed them, the person says; there will be no need for tracking devices, such as radio frequency chips, embedded in the merchandise. When shoppers leave, algorithms will total the order and bill their Amazon account.

The system is working well for individual shoppers but still struggles to accurately charge people who are moving around in groups, such as families with grabby kids, the person says. Go engineers have been studying families shopping together and are tweaking their sensors to recognize when a child eats an item while wandering around the store. Engineers are also figuring out which person to charge when a couple goes shopping together. Amazon has encouraged employees to enter the store in pairs and buy lunch.

The company is conducting further tests and focus groups from an undisclosed building in Seattle, the person said. The focus groups are used to design protocols for in-store returns, spoiled or damaged merchandise and customer service issues that are common to brick-and-mortar retail.

It’s unclear how quickly Amazon Go will ramp up. The company has moved deliberately with its brick-and-mortar book stores, opening just 13 in seven states since launching the first one in Seattle two years ago. Analysts expect a version of Amazon Go technology to be rolled out eventually at Whole Foods Market, the upscale grocery chain Amazon acquired in September for $13.7 billion. That’s a far more challenging prospect because Whole Foods locations are much larger than the 1,800-square-foot convenience store and carry thousands more products. Amazon, which says it currently has no such plans, would need a lot more testers wearing Pikachu costumes to pull that off.

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Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first-ever hijab wearing woman to compete for the U.S. in the 2016 Rio Olympic games, now she has a Barbie of her own.

This Barbie is the first of its kind to be wearing a hijab in the 58 years that it has existed.

According to PeopleStyle, Muhammad’s Barbie was unveiled at Glamour’s Women of the Year Live Summit, and is the latest in the Barbie’s “Shero” line, celebrating women who inspire the next generation.

“I’m excited to just partner with a brand that I know honors powerful women who are breaking barriers and whose sole goal is to impact the future leaders of tomorrow. To be included in this conversation is very humbling and I’m over the moon about this whole thing,” Muhammad told PeopleStyle.

Muhammad worked with Mattel every step of the way in the design process to make sure that the doll resembled her.

“It’s so cool to see myself in this little doll form with my fencing uniform on. It says my name on the back and it has a fencing mask and the little sabre. I just love it,” she told PeopleStyle adding that she wanted her Barbie to wear a hijab.

“I think its revolutionary for Barbie to take a stand in this moment that we’re in – and I would say, as a country, to have a doll wear a hijab and be the first of its kind. There has never been a Barbie doll to wear a hijab before. I’m really excited to have this moment happen in my life and also for all these little girls now who can shop for Barbie doll that may look them, may wear a hijab like they do, or like their mom does, or like a friend does. But also have kids who aren’t Muslim, who don’t wear a hijab, to also have the opportunity to play with a doll that wears a hijab,” she explained, hoping that this is just the start to a more diverse representation.

“I think it would be cool to have Malala have a Barbie doll… her story line in general would be great to teach our kids today. I’m going to tell Mattel to streamline that. I’ll be the agent on that,” Muhammad added.

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This year, about 350 people attended the Bihar – Jharkhand Association of North America (BJANA) Diwali celebration at Royal Albert Palace in Edison, New Jersey.

The occasion was graced by Consul General Sandeep Chakravorty who was presented with an Achievement Award.

He also praised the efforts of the BJANA community and the vibrant team and said that we should give back to the community in which we live in and added that the Consulate was open for anyone who needed any kind of help.

The BJANA committee, then honored Dr. Geeta Gupta, an Internist and Mrs. Sarla Singh, a Chartered Accountant, for their achievements and contribution to the community.

Others who were honored by the BJANA committee were Amit Choudhary, the Chief Financial Officer of Capgemini and Girish Varma, the President of Global IT services & Solutions, CenturyLink.

The celebration featured a cultural show with both Bollywood and Classical items along with a “Ram Leela” musical act, presented by young children.

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More than 200 guests attended the annual Washington, D.C. gala organized by the American India Foundation to raise money for fellowships. High profile guests including representatives from the diplomatic corps, business leaders and scholars, attended the gala held at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, Nov. 10. The event raised approximately $303,000 to support AIF’s William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India.

During the event, AIF honored Pradman Kaul, president and CEO of Hughes Network Systems, for his leadership in technology, public service, and philanthropy.

The evening featured remarks from India’s Ambassador to the U.S. Navtej Sarna, AIF Clinton Fellow alumni Avan Antia (Post-Baccalaureate Research Fellow at National Institutes of Health) and Vikas Raj (Managing Director at Accion Venture Lab). Nishant Pandey, CEO of AIF, gave concluding remarks thanking gala Co-Chairs Mahinder and Sharad Tak, and Ranvir and Adarsh Trehan, as well as the AIF Young Professionals D.C.- chapter, who were instrumental in organizing the event.

The event also highlighted the generous donation from The Hans Foundation to the AIF Fellowship Program. Paul Glick, director at the Hans Foundation, was present at the occasion.

The AIF Clinton Fellowship is a volunteer service program matching young professionals from the U.S. and India with development organizations and social enterprises across India. Fellows support organizations at a crucial moment of scalability through collaboration, capacity building and skill sharing. According to the AIF, the “Clinton Fellowship is creating lasting ties between the U.S. and India by strengthening the development sector and equipping the next generation of leaders to advance positive social change,” a press release from the organization said.

Founded in 2001 at the initiative of former President Bill Clinton following a suggestion from Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee, AIF says it has impacted the lives of 3.1 million of India’s poor and aims to reach 5 million by 2018-2019. According to a press release, the organization’s mission is to ‘disrupt poverty,’ catalyze social and economic change in India, and build a lasting bridge between the United States and India, by engaging in high-impact interventions in numerous areas, with a particular emphasis on empowering girls and women. It works closely with local communities, non-governmental organizations, and governments to achieve these goals.

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The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has reported that Indian companies have created 113,000 jobs in the United States, have invested nearly $18 billion in the country and have contributed $147 million towards corporate social responsibility along with spending $ 588 on research and development expenditures in the United States.

According to PTI, the report titled “Indian Roots, American Soil” gives a state-by-state breakdown of the tangible investments made and shows the jobs created in the U.S. by 100 Indian firms.

Together, the 100 companies employ 113,423 people across 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico; with 8,572 in New Jersey, 7,271 in Texas, 6,749 in California, 5,135 in New York and 4,554 in Georgia, exceeding $17.9 billion worth of investments.

The report also includes the top five states which have the highest foreign direct investment: $1.57 billion in New York, $1.56 billion in New Jersey, $931 million in Massachusetts, $542 million in California and $435 million in Wyoming.

The average amount of investment received from these Indian companies is $187 million per state and 85 percent of them plan to make more investments in the U.S. with 87 percent of them wanting to hire more local employees in the next five years.

“The presence and reach of Indian companies continue to grow each year as they invest billions of dollars and create jobs across the United States,” Navtej Sarna, Indian Ambassador to the U.S., told PTI adding that Indian industry and professionals are making significant contributions to the U.S. economy.

Chandrajit Banerjee, CII director general, told PTI that “the story of Indian investment in the U.S. is one that showcases how intertwined the two countries are that contribute to each other’s success.”

“Indian firms are among the fastest growing investors in the US, contributing to growth and job creation in the US economy,” Senator Chris Van Hollen added.

The resident director of North America of Tata Sons Ltd., James Shapiro told PTI that “as the largest India-headquartered multinational in North America, the Tata Group has had operations and investments in the US market for many decades.”

“As the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy, a strong US-India partnership is vital for the 21st century,” Congressman Ami Bera told PTI.

“The friendship between the US and India has continued to grow under President Trump’s administration, said Congressman Pete Sessions. Indian businesses have brought hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs to Texas and, at the same time, the reforms led by Prime Minister Modi have opened doors for American companies to expand their operations in India,” he added.

The report also shows that Indian companies have invested over $195 million and created over 3,800 jobs in Illinois, the state of Indian American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi who told PTI, “I hope that Indian companies continue to put down roots and invest in our state, as our economy and community are strengthened by their engagement with us.”

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MUMBAI – Three days before Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd announced quarterly results this summer, a message circulated on a private WhatsApp group saying the Indian drugmaker would not post good numbers.

Dr. Reddy’s was going to report a loss, according to the message on the “Market Chatter” group, which was posted on July 24 from a mobile phone number that Reuters traced back to Nishant Vass, an auto analyst at ICICI Securities, a leading Indian brokerage. The WhatsApp group had 45 members, mostly traders.

The loss would have been a surprise to many analysts, as consensus forecasts compiled by Thomson Reuters at the time showed expectations of a profit of 3 billion rupees.

The message proved prescient: On July 27, Dr. Reddy’s reported a loss of 587 million rupees (9.05 million dollars) – a result its chief executive said was “below expectations”, sending shares down as much as 4.4 percent.

The post that circulated in the WhatsApp group three days earlier had predicted a loss of more than 500 million rupees.

A person who identified himself as Vass returned a call from Reuters using the telephone number from which the Dr. Reddy’s numbers had been posted on the WhatsApp group. He denied writing or sharing posts in the group, adding later in a separate WhatsApp message from the same number that it was “totally baseless” that he had done so.

Reuters has documented at least 12 cases of prescient messages about major Indian companies, including Dr. Reddy’s, being posted in private WhatsApp groups.

Two of the messages appeared in the transcripts of six groups reviewed by Reuters, including the “Market Chatter” group where the Dr. Reddy’s numbers appeared. The others were shared on condition of anonymity by two other members of other WhatsApp groups.

The posts with prescient numbers in the WhatsApp groups were circulated hours or days before official company statements.

The messages shared could involve lucky guesses or astute forecasts based on publicly available information, and not all metrics shared among the 12 cases were exactly the same as reported.

Reuters could not determine where the numbers posted on the WhatsApp groups originated or whether any of the market participants who received the messages had traded on the basis of the numbers they had seen.

According to two lawyers who were formerly senior officials at the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the country’s capital markets regulator, if any numbers being posted on WhatsApp groups were determined by regulators to be “unpublished price-sensitive information”, the people circulating them would be breaking the law.

“The mere sharing of information that could be unpublished insider information is outlawed, even if you don’t misuse the information to trade on it,” said Sandeep Parekh, a lawyer with Finsec Law Advisors who used to head SEBI’s enforcement division.

SEBI did not respond to requests for comment.

India significantly toughened insider trading rules in early 2015, expanding what constitutes “unpublished price-sensitive information” to include “any information” that is not “generally available” and that could have a market impact.

The law also expanded the scope of who constitutes an “insider” to include “anyone in possession of or having access to unpublished price-sensitive information” regardless of how they came “in possession of or had access to such information”.

“You don’t need to have gotten inside information from a company. You could get it from anywhere,” said Vaneesa Agrawal, a partner with Suvan Law Advisors who formerly worked in SEBI’s legal department. “As soon as you have information that could be insider information you are an insider, and you are not supposed to either pass it on or trade on it.”

Circulating “unpublished price-sensitive information” can result in penalties of up to 250 million rupees and a jail term of up to 10 years. The monetary amount can be higher if it can be proven that an individual traded on such information.

ICICI Securities said in a statement that it had “zero tolerance towards any dissemination of unpublished price sensitive information and has an appropriate framework to safeguard confidentiality of information.”

Dr. Reddy’s said it was “not aware of any information related to its financial results being circulated externally ahead of statutory disclosures that are made officially by the company.”

MESSAGING THROUGH WHATSAPP

The messages about the 12 companies with prescient information obtained by Reuters involved mostly what were characterised as being upcoming quarterly results, including specific metrics such as net profits, revenues and operating margins.

They also included messages about upcoming bonus share issues or revenue guidance.

Seven of the companies are part of the benchmark NSE index: Dr. Reddy’s, the drug maker Cipla Ltd, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Tata Steel, the IT services company Wipro, and Bajaj Finance.

The other five were Mahindra Holidays and Resorts, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd, the IT services providers Mindtree Ltd and Mastek Ltd, and India Glycols, a petrochemicals company.

Wipro, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank, Mastek, Crompton Greaves, Cipla and Mahindra Holidays said they were not aware messages referring to their upcoming results or announcements had circulated in WhatsApp, and that the companies adhered to strict standards of guarding sensitive company information.

Axis Bank, Tata Steel, India Glycols, Mindtree did not reply to requests for comment.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, responded to a request for comment by pointing to its terms of service, which state users can use the platform only for “legal, authorized, and acceptable purposes”.

HEARD ON THE STREET

Many of the postings in the WhatsApp groups are referred to as “HOS”, for “Heard on the Street”.

In one typical post on July 25, Fanil Motiwalla, a contractor for a small brokerage, Arcadia Share & Stock Brokers, posted a set of numbers for Axis Bank, India’s third-largest private lender. Motiwalla works as a sub-broker, who are typically hired as contractors by securities firms in India to recruit customers.

“This HOS is going around for Axis,” Motiwalla said when posting the numbers, which included key metrics such as gross non-performing assets and net interest margins.

Later that day, Axis Bank reported results that closely matched the final numbers in Motiwalla’s message.

Arcadia said it had policies in place to prevent employees from passing on “illegal information”.

Motiwalla said he just reposted a message that had already been circulating in the market and he did not consider it inside information.

“How do I know if this is coming from inside information? This could come from many sources,” he said. “This information comes from different groups, and we just post it.”

Arcadia said every sub-broker it hired was given a copy of SEBI’s rules, adding, “whatever the alleged message sent by him is not sourced from Arcadia,” referring to Motiwalla.

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The White House on Wednesday made public for the first time the rules by which the government decides to disclose or keep secret software flaws that can be turned into cyberweapons – whether by U.S. agencies hacking for foreign intelligence, money-hungry criminals or foreign spies seeking to penetrate American computers.

The move to publish an unclassified charter responds to years of criticism that the process was unnecessarily opaque, fueling suspicion that it cloaked a stockpile of software flaws that the National Security Agency was hoarding to go after foreign targets, but that put American’s cybersecurity at risk.

“This is a really big improvement and an outstanding process,” said White House cybersecurity coordinator Rob Joyce, who spoke at an Aspen Institute event and issued a blog post on the charter.

By making it public, he said, “we hope to demonstrate to the American people that the federal government is carefully weighing the risks and benefits” of disclosure vs. retention.

The rules are part of the “Vulnerabilities Equities Process,” which the Obama administration revamped in 2014 as a multiagency forum to debate whether and when to inform companies such as Microsoft and Juniper when the government has discovered or bought a software flaw that, if weaponized, could affect the security of their product.

The Trump administration has mostly not altered the rules under which the government reaches a decision but is disclosing its process. Under the VEP, an “equities review board” of at least a dozen national security and civilian agencies will meet monthly – or more often, if a need arises – to discuss newly discovered vulnerabilities. Besides the NSA, the CIA and the FBI, the list includes the Treasury, Commerce and State departments, and the Office of Management and Budget.

The priority is on disclosure, the policy states, to protect core Internet systems, the U.S. economy and critical infrastructure, unless there is “a demonstrable, overriding interest” in using the flaw for intelligence or law enforcement purposes.

The government has long said that it discloses the vast majority – more than 90 percent – of the vulnerabilities it discovers or buys in products from defense contractors or other sellers. In recent years, that has amounted to more than 100 a year, according to people familiar with the process.

But because the process was classified, the National Security Council, which runs the discussion, was never able to reveal any numbers. Now, Joyce said, the number of flaws disclosed and the number retained will be made public in an annual report. A classified version will be sent to Congress, he said.

“This represents a good step forward in transparency and shows the government getting more comfortable and more mature with this process,” said Michael Daniel, who, as Joyce’s predecessor, oversaw the revamped process. Daniel issued the first blog post on the VEP in April 2014 in large part to push back against the misperception that the Heartbleed bug, which sparked fears of a massive security hole in the Internet, had been kept secret by the NSA.

The debate raged anew this year when it became public that the malicious code at the heart of the WannaCry virus that hit computer systems globally was developed by the NSA. The Washington Post reported in May that officials at the agency had years earlier discussed whether the flaw at the base of the tool, EternalBlue, was so dangerous that it should be revealed to Microsoft.

Instead, the agency retained it. In August 2016, a mysterious group calling itself the Shadow Brokers put online a set of “exploits,” or tools, that included EternalBlue. That eventually led the NSA to alert Microsoft, which issued a patch in March. But not enough people and companies used the patch – especially in Russia, India, Iran, Brazil and other countries in Eastern Europe and Asia where computers were infected by WannaCry or other viruses based on the flaw.

Another major breach occurred in March, when the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks dumped online a trove of CIA hacking tools.

“A lot of companies whose software was affected were confused,” recalled Ari Schwartz, coordinator of the Coalition for Cybersecurity Policy and Law, which includes such firms as Microsoft, Symantec, Intel and Palo Alto Networks. “They were taken aback that nobody from the CIA had come to them and told them. They found out about it from the press.”

Joyce noted that at times the government has alerted a company to a flaw only to be told, “That’s great, but we’re telling customers that they need to buy this shiny next-generation [device], and so they have no intention of patching their own equipment,” he said. There have also been companies who, when informed of a flaw, said: “That’s not a flaw. That’s a feature.”

All the government can do at that point, he said, is put out a Department of Homeland Security warning about the software flaws.

Tech companies generally reacted favorably to Wednesday’s move. “Getting the VEP right is critical to fostering trust and cooperation between the tech sector and the government,” said Heather West, senior policy manager at Mozilla, which makes the widely used browser Firefox. “This accomplishes a lot of things we were asking for in terms of reform.”

Former critics of the process also applauded the transparency. “I’m very happy to see that they make clear that the presumption lies in favor of disclosure,” said Michelle Richardson, a security expert at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

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NEW DELHI – Over three years into office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity is still at par with what it was in 2015, and 70 per cent Indians are “satisfied” with the way things are going in the country, a Pew survey of 2,464 respondents shows.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday drew media’s attention towards the “detailed” survey by the US-based think tank which, Prasad emphasised, was “well reputed and credible”.

According to the survey, conducted among 2,464 respondents in India from February 21 to March 10 this year, nearly 90 per cent Indians hold a favorable opinion of Modi, comparable to their view of him in 2015, after a year in office.

Roughly 70 per cent say they have a very favorable view of the Prime Minister. It says that since 2015, Modi’s popularity is relatively unchanged in the north, has risen in the west and the south and is down slightly in the east.

It points out that Modi’s favorable rating is 31 percentage points higher than that of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, and 30 points higher than that of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.

Overall, 70 per cent Indians are “satisfied” with the way things are going in the country. This positive assessment of India’s direction has nearly doubled since 2014, it says.

India has a population of around 1.30 billion, of which, 814.5 million people were eligible to vote, that is, those who are above 18 years of age as per the Election Commission of India data.

The Pew survey did not include the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala and the entire northeast.

Also, 70 per cent Indians approve of how he has helped the poor and handled unemployment, terrorism and corruption. Approval in these four areas is up 10 points or more since 2016, the survey finds.

“BJP supporters have a more positive opinion on the economy than Congress supporters. But both groups are similarly satisfied with the direction of the country, despite a partisan gap of 18 points in 2016,” the survey says.

As far as handling of various burning issues by Modi, only 50 per cent approve of the way he has handled communal relations, just 48 per cent approve handling of air pollution, 57 approve of handling of rising prices and 60 per cent approve Modi’s handling of the Kashmir issue.

“Modi’s lowest ratings are for his handling of communal relations (50 per rcent) — the long fractious tensions between Muslims and Hindus and India’s various castes — and for his efforts to curb air pollution (48 per cent). People living in northern India…are particularly critical of how he has dealt with communal relations. And rural Indians are less supportive than those in urban areas of his handling of both communal relations and air pollution,” the survey says.

According to the survey findings, Modi is quite popular among youngsters, that is aged between 18-29 years. Around 72 per cent of this age group has “very favorable” view of Modi while only 5 per cent hold “very unfavorable” view of him.

The overall “very favorable” views are 69 per cent while “very unfavorable” are just 6 per cent.

Interestingly, a majority (55 per cent) of Indians also back a governing system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from Parliament or the courts, while 53 per cent support military rule, the survey finds.

“Support for autocratic rule is higher in India than in any other nation surveyed,” it notes.

“BJP supporters and those who live in urban areas are significantly more likely than Congress party backers and those in rural regions to support rule by a strong leader, by the military and by experts,” it further says.

On demonetization, it finds that despite Prime Minister Modi’s decision last November to abolish high-value bank notes, less than half of the Indian population sees the lack of availability of cash to be a major problem.

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NEW DELHI – India directed its largest utility NTPC Ltd to blend crop residue with coal at its power plants, in a bid to reduce stubble burning on agricultural lands which is clouding New Delhi with smog.

Rich farmers in the northern Indian states of Haryana and Punjab use mechanized harvesters – which leave more residue than crops plucked by hand – to save money amid rising labour costs.

Subsequent burning of the residue is a major source of smog at this time of year across northern India, including New Delhi, as farmers burn the stubble of the previous crop to prepare for new plantings in November.

Since October, more than 40,000 fires have been recorded in Punjab, as farmers disposed of nearly 20 million tonnes of rice waste, environmental groups said.

Under the government plan, state-run NTPC will buy waste from farmers and use it to make biomass pellets, and fuel at its power plants will be 10 percent biomass and 90 percent coal.

“This step would give the farmers a monetary return of 5500 rupees ($84.27) per tonne of crop residue and hence create a market for it,” Power Minister R.K. Singh said on Thursday.

The government is in talks with all state governments to make this step mandatory for all the thermal power plants in their jurisdiction, Singh said.

The move could limit mass burning over a short period of time, and save Delhi from toxic air during winter.

“Coal plants will have some sort of pollution control as compared to nothing at the farm level,” said Chandra Bhushan. deputy director general of the Centre for Science and Environment, a non-government organisation.

“In general, use of 10 percent biomass has shown reduction in sulphur oxide emissions,” Bhushan said.

NTPC had already issued a tender to procure biomass pellets for a power plant in the state of Uttar Pradesh in August.

Stubble burning is just one of the many causes of toxic air pollution in and around New Delhi, where respiratory diseases kill 10 people per day according to government data.

On Monday, a thick cloud of toxic smog 10 times the recommended limit enveloped New Delhi, as government officials struggled to tackle a public health crisis that is well into its second week.

Thermal power companies alone account for 80 percent of all industrial emissions of particulate matter, sulphur and nitrous oxides in India, and their slowness in complying with new standards to curb pollution shows the difficulties India faces in cleaning up its polluted air.

A combination of industrial pollution, vehicle exhaust and dust envelop the region every year as winter approaches and wind speeds drop, leading to schools getting shut down and employees calling in sick.

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WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans say their investigation of Hillary Clinton’s role in approving a deal to sell U.S. uranium mines to a Russian company hinges in part on the testimony of a secret informant in a bribery and extortion scheme inside the same company.

The Senate committee searching for Clinton’s alleged wrongdoing is keeping their witness’s name cloaked. However, William D. Campbell, a lobbyist, confirmed to Reuters he is the informant who will testify and provide documents to Congress about the Obama Administration’s 2010 approval of the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian company with uranium mines in the United States, to Russia’s Rosatom.

At the time of the sale, Campbell was a confidential source for the FBI in a Maryland bribery and kickback investigation of the head of a U.S. unit of Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear power company. Campbell was identified as an FBI informant by prosecutors in open court and by himself in a publicly available lawsuit he filed last year.

[Link to page from Campbell lawsuit http://tmsnrt.rs/2zZhZkM and full complaint http://tmsnrt.rs/2zXKMWD]

In a telephone interview, Campbell said he wanted to testify because of his concerns about Russia’s activities in the United States, but declined to comment further.

Campbell’s lawyer, Victoria Toensing, who has not previously identified her client, said despite Campbell telling the government “how corrupt the company was,” Rosatom still got permission to buy Uranium One. She did not say what Campbell would reveal regarding any alleged wrongdoing by Clinton.

Clinton has said the Senate probe is an attempt to shift attention away from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s alleged role in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. As the heat from Mueller’s investigation has intensified, Trump has repeatedly called for an inquiry into Clinton and the Russian uranium deal.

“This latest iteration is simply more of the Right doing Trump’s bidding for him to distract from his own Russia problems,” said Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesman.

Some people who know Campbell are skeptical that he can shed much light on Uranium One. Two law enforcement officials with direct involvement in the Rosatom bribery case in which Campbell was an informant said they had no recollection or record of him mentioning the deal during their repeated interviews with him.

Also, although both Uranium One and the bribery cases involved Rosatom, the two cases involved different business units, executives and allegations, with little other apparent overlap, Reuters found in a review of the court records of the bribery case.

Campbell countered those who dismiss his knowledge of the Uranium One deal. “I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist and I have it,” Campbell said. He declined to give details of those documents.

Reuters was unable to learn when the closed-door testimony has been scheduled.

Trump asked that a Justice Department gag order on Campbell stemming from the bribery case be lifted so that he can testify to congressional investigators, White House officials said.

The Justice Department has partially lifted that gag order.

CAMPBELL TESTIMONY ‘CRITICAL’

Campbell potentially now has a larger starring role in the Washington drama after the Justice Department said in a letter to Congress on Monday that it was considering appointing a special prosecutor to launch an investigation into Republican allegations of wrongdoing by Clinton, Trump’s former political rival, in the deal.

Under Clinton, the State Department was part of a nine-agency government Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States that approved the purchase of Uranium One. Her critics, including Trump, allege large donations by people connected to the Uranium One deal made to her family’s foundation influenced the State Department’s decision to approve it.

Reuters has no evidence that Clinton orchestrated the approval of Uranium One.

In an email, Rosatom said the company had made no donations to the Clinton Foundation and had not asked others to do so. The foundation stressed the State Department was only one member of the committee that approved the deal and said Clinton had no personal involvement in the decision.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley said in a letter to Toensing, Campbell’s lawyer, that her client appears to have information “critical to the Committee’s oversight of the Justice Department and its ongoing inquiry into the manner in which” the Uranium One sale was approved.

BRIBERY SCHEME

Campbell worked as an informant for federal authorities investigating Vadim Mikerin, a Russian official in charge of U.S. operations for Tenex, a unit of Rosatom. Authorities later accused Mikerin of taking bribes from a shipping company in exchange for contracts to transport Russian uranium into the United States. He pleaded guilty in federal court in Maryland and was sentenced to prison for four years.

The Justice Department had also initially charged Mikerin with extorting kickbacks from Campbell after hiring him as a $50,000-a-month lobbyist.

Prosecutors alleged Mikerin had demanded Campbell pay between one-third and half of that money back to him each month under threat of losing the contract and veiled warnings of violence from the Russians. The demand prompted Campbell to turn to the FBI in 2010, which gave its blessing for him to remain part of the scheme.

Federal prosecutors were ready to use Campbell as a star witness against Mikerin, but they backed away after defense attorneys raised questions about Campbell’s credibility and whether he was a victim or had “entered into a business arrangement with eyes wide open,” according to court records.

Before it was taken down last year, the website of Campbell’s company, Sigma Transnational, did not suggest his firm was a lobbying powerhouse. The website listed four other employees and advisers, although one had died years earlier. A second employee listed said in a court document that she never worked for the company but had agreed in 2014 to pay Campbell to list her as an employee and allow her to use the Sigma name in a business deal. Campbell declined to comment on the staffing or his lobbying contract with Tenex.

Prosecutors dropped the extortion charges against Mikerin and never mentioned Campbell again in any charging documents. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the case. Campbell also declined to comment on the issue.

Reuters has been unable to learn why Tenex chose Campbell as its lobbyist. He acknowledged in lawsuit he filed in 2016 that he was hired despite the fact he “had no experience with nuclear fuel sales.”

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WASHINGTON – The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week in part as a backlog of applications from Puerto Rico continued to be processed, but the underlying trend pointed to tightening labor market conditions.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 249,000 for the week ended Nov. 11, the Labor Department said on Thursday. It was the second straight weekly increase.

The claims backlog in Puerto Rico is being cleared as some of the infrastructure damaged by hurricanes Irma and Maria is restored. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 235,000 in the latest week.

A labor department official said while the backlog in Puerto Rico was being processed, claims-taking procedures continued to be severely disrupted in the Virgin Islands.

Last week marked the 141st straight week that claims remained below the 300,000 threshold, which is associated with a strong labor market. That is the longest such stretch since 1970, when the labor market was smaller.

The labor market is near full employment, with the jobless rate at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent. The four-week moving average of initial claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, rose 6,500 to 237,750 last week.

U.S. financial markets were little moved by the data.

The low level of claims suggests strong job growth despite hurricane-related disruptions in September. Employment gains could, however, slow as companies struggle to find qualified workers, which economists expect will boost sluggish wage growth.

The claims report also showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid dropped 44,000 to 1.86 million in the week ended Nov. 4, the lowest level since December 1973. The four-week moving average of the so-called continuing claims fell 9,000 to 1.89 million, the lowest reading since January 1974.

In another report on Thursday, the Labor Department said import prices gained 0.2 percent last month as an increase in the cost of imported petroleum and capital goods was offset by a decline in food prices. That followed a 0.8 percent jump in September.

In the 12 months through October, import prices increased 2.5 percent, slowing after a 2.7 percent rise in September.

Last month, prices for imported petroleum increased 1.7 percent after surging 6.3 percent in September. Import prices excluding petroleum edged up 0.1 percent after shooting up 0.4 percent the prior month. Import prices excluding petroleum rose 1.4 percent in the 12 months through October.

A weak dollar, which has this year lost 5.4 percent of its value against the currencies of the United States’ main trading partners, could keep import prices outside petroleum supported.

Imported capital goods prices rose 0.2 percent last month, while the cost of imported food fell 0.2 percent.

The report also showed export prices were unchanged in October as the biggest monthly increase in the price of agricultural exports in nearly 1-1/2 years was eclipsed by a drop in non-agricultural prices. Export prices rose 0.7 percent in September. They increased 2.7 percent year-on-year last month after rising 2.8 percent in September.

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It has been a “Sorry Day” every day (or should I say a “Sari Day”) for a well-known media organization in the US ever since they published a piece on Sari and its purportedly new affiliation with Hindu Nationalism. Of all things in the world, the New York Times found it convenient to conduct a frontal assault on a product that is renowned globally for its charm and elegance – The Indian garment called Sari (Saree). The Sari should not be promoted by any one or worn by anyone, pontificated the wise men who sit inside the NYT’s Manhattan office. The recently published article implied that wearing or promoting the sari would tantamount to support for the Hindu Nationalist government of India. People around the world are reacting to this racist and bigoted piece and expressing their natural outrage. I wish to join the crowd that is protesting the NYT.

How did all this begin? Well, the phenomenon that caught the attention of the NYT was a recent effort by the Government of India to promote its textile industry. Due to recent tax reforms in India, especially the GST tax, many small businesses are going through a painful time, financially speaking. To help alleviate that pain, the Modi government is coming up with some innovative initiatives. One of them is the promotion of the cottage industry that makes world renowned Saris in the ancient city of Varanasi, the constituency that elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Indian Parliament. Hence the NYT concluded that apart from all the problems being caused by the Modi government, the latest one deserves special mention. They argue that Sari is Hindu and therefore its promotion is high on the agenda of Hindu Nationalists and of course that would be very dangerous to the world. The author who had penned the article or the editors who allowed it to be published was either totally intoxicated or have lost all their sanity.

For beginners, the vast majority of the weavers who make these Saris in Varanasi are Muslim families and they have done it for generations. In other words, Muslims (not Hindus) make the most popular Saris in the world. Not just Hindus or Indians wear the Sari. Millions of Christians, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, non-believers and followers of other religions wear it. Indians, Americans, Europeans and people of all nationalities and races around the world have either worn this elegant garment or dreamt of wearing it one day.

It appears that the NYT did not see Sonia Gandhi (the Italian origin politician who heads the Congress Party), Brinda Karat (Prominent leader of the Communist Party) or so many others who oppose Hindu Nationalism wearing Saris. We are only expected to look at Smriti Irani, the Textile Minister of India, wearing a Sari and then make an appropriate observation on the rise of Hindu Nationalism in all facets of Indian life, including fashion. I used to think that the first class in Journalism was on logic. I have been proven wrong by the NYT. As one BJP Politician put it, from now on consuming Indian dishes like Dosas may also be construed as an act promoting Hindu Nationalism.

From talk show host Oprah Winfrey to actress Julia Roberts, from British Prime Minister Theresa May to singer Jessica Alba, millions of women around the world are admirers of the Sari. Theresa May, in fact, wore the Sari on her maiden speech as Home Secretary (the equivalent of US Secretary of State). Just the other day, a Hispanic colleague of mine (who is a Catholic from Mexico) asked me where she could get a Sari when I showed her the photo of my wife in a Sari. The truth from the street is that if you are a female and you want that “Princess Look”, then you better take a good shot at the Sari. But, then again, the New York Times lives in the middle ages, it seems.

I have two pieces of advice for the NYT. Few years ago, a bumper sticker on someone’s car caught my attention. It said, “ The mind is like a parachute. It is only useful when it is open”. Obviously, the statement is asking us to have an open mind. It appears that the NYT has forgotten the utility of an open mind. It would be a good thing to have, especially if you are in the journalistic profession. Secondly, the purpose of journalism is to distribute facts, truths as well as fair and balanced opinion or editorial on matters of interest to the public. It would be good if the NYT attempts to regain its credibility in the world by sticking to that purpose. Perhaps the words of Walter Cronkite might be helpful to those who work in NYT.

“I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being non-doctrinaire, non-dogmatic, non- committed to a cause – but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing. It is a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal. If they’re not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they’re preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can’t be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism.” Those were the words of Walter Cronkite, a legend in the field of journalism sharing his thoughts in an interview to the Chicago Sun. Most journalists look up to his vision of liberalism and journalism with respect.

Cronkite had a warm and pleasant personality. I know first hand because he was a frequent visitor to my family’s Indian restaurant in Washington, D.C. He was a big man with a great smile. That was enough for any one to admire him. But more importantly, it is because he was a decent human being who performed his job in a responsible and ethical manner. He was a gem of a journalist throughout his career. That is why he was admired by people of all ideological shades, both within the US and around the world. There are many like him who tries to set the bar very high.

Unfortunately, there are few others in the media that indulge in distributing trash, raw sewage to a global audience every single day. They relish the thought of being controversial for the sake of controversy and in the process becomes more like a tabloid that is sold at grocery store counters. These days, the NYT, CNN and few others belong to this category. They have reckless disregard for facts and truth. They damage the reputation of the entire media industry. They should be shunned. Withdrawing advertisements and canceling subscriptions to the NYT would be a good way to express our rightful indignation at their thoughtless and irrational content. Organizations responsible for setting the standards of the press should ostracize them. Otherwise, we the true seekers of facts, truth and fairness will be the losers. Do your bit for the sake of truth and fairness.

In the mean time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hundreds of millions of Hindu nationalists and an even greater number of their Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Jewish supporters around the world would be delighted to know that Arianna Huffington, Madonna, Naomi Campbell, Jessica Alba and millions of celebrities and ordinary people who are neither Hindus nor Indians are now officially Hindu Nationalists. For this rare discovery, Hindu Nationalists should be ever grateful to the Editorial Board of New York Times.

The author is the President of the US Hindu Alliance (USHA). He can be reached via email at contactgokulkunnath@gmail.com, through Facebook or Twitter.

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The FBI released data this week that showed a continuing rise in hate crimes across the country in 2016, with 6,121 total incidents, compared to the 5,850 reported the year before. There was a 19 percent rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes – the largest jump against any group – since the previous year, which also saw a precipitous rise.

But the data are also misleading. There are so many gaping holes in the data that it is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the true scope of bias-related crimes in America.

To start with, it’s impossible to conclude that hate crimes are being prosecuted on a large scale. The FBI’s data set is composed of crimes that state-level agencies have determined meet the federal definition of a hate crime. But that doesn’t mean they were charged as such, and in most cases, they’re not, with prosecutors either failing to identify bias in the motive or choosing to rest their case on simpler charges such as assault and vandalism.

Hate crime statutes also vary from state to state and don’t exist at all in Wyoming, Indiana, Arkansas, Georgia and South Carolina. And the FBI’s data set includes no notation of how many of the 6,121 incidents last year resulted in arrests or specific hate crimes charges.

It’s also impossible to say where most hate crimes are being committed. FBI data shows roughly half the hate crimes in the country occur in just six states: California, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts and Washington. You might think that California, the location of 931 hate crimes last year – more than any other state, according to the FBI – is the worst place to be black, gay or Muslim. But that would be the wrong conclusion, says Brian Levin, a criminologist and attorney who has spent 31 years studying hate crimes. It just means California is better than most other states at reporting hate crimes.

Hate crime reporting varies widely by state. The statistics compiled by the FBI each year depend on thousands of U.S. law enforcement agencies voluntarily submitting their data to their state’s uniform crime reporting agency, which then categorize the crimes – deciding, for example, what crimes meet the federalhate crime definition. Those state agencies then voluntarily submit their data to the FBI.

In California, less than 30 percent of law enforcement agencies submitted data last year. In Massachusetts, which Levin considers one of the most thorough states when it comes to reporting hate crimes, less than a quarter of the agencies submitted.

Then you have Hawaii, which submitted no data. In Arkansas, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, only 1 percent of law enforcement agencies sent in their hate crimes statistics. More than 80 U.S. cities with more than 100,000 residents either reported no hate crimes or simply ignored the FBI’s request for data. The result is a compilation of numbers that is startlingly arbitrary.

“We have a variety of states that are just not meaningfully participating,” said Levin, who heads the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino.

Some of the states with the highest percentages of African-American residents – such as Mississippi and Alabama – reported very low numbers of hate crimes, even though half the hate crimes reported last year by the FBI targeted African-Americans. That’s an indication that the data is skewed, Levin said.

Meanwhile, “Massachusetts has the highest per capita rate of hate crimes – which doesn’t mean they’re all haters,” he added. “It means they’re paying attention.”

It’s not just law enforcement agencies that are underreporting the problem, experts say. It’s also the victims.

Minority groups, particularly recent immigrants, often fail to report being victims of hate crimes for a variety of reasons, ranging from fear and mistrust of the police to language barriers and poor understanding of the laws.

“If you’re an immigrant from an undemocratic nation where the police are not to be trusted, you would never call the police,” said Michael Lieberman, the Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League.

Conversely, Lieberman said, American Jews, who are predominantly white and have better trust in the police, are fairly good at reporting hate crimes – 53 percent of the religiously motivated hate crimes identified in 2016 targeted Jews.

Civil rights activists say some minority groups, including blacks, Muslims and undocumented immigrants, are additionally nervous about going to the police due to a history of police discrimination and abuse.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said they received reports of some 540 incidents of harassment of Muslims by law enforcement officials in 2016 alone; a statistic they tally alongside hate crimes and other forms of discrimination.

A Pew Research Center survey of Muslims this year found that 6 percent said they had been threatened or attacked for being Muslim – a vastly larger number than those incidents reported by the FBI, even with the 19 percent rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes last year and the 66 percent jump in anti-Muslim hate crimes the year before.

Critically, the fact that the FBI is tallying something as a hate crime in its annual report does not actually mean that the incident was charged as such – it just means that the incident meets the federal government’s definition.

More often than not, police and prosecutors decide not to charge incidents as hate crimes, Levin said. For one, it is hard to prove a hate crime. While convictions for other crimes like murder, vandalism or theft require only evidence that the suspect committed the act, a hate crime conviction requires proof of motive – a specific, discriminatory motive.

“Hate crimes are specific intent crimes, which means the motivation has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and that is really hard,” Levin said. “Even in San Francisco, where they prosecute these crimes as hate crimes, juries are often reticent to convict on a hate crimes charge.”

It’s also often easier just to skip the hate crime charge, particularly if the crime is severe enough that prosecutors will be able to ask for the maximum penalty without it.

For example, Craig Hicks, who allegedly killed three Muslim college students at their apartment complex in 2015, is not being charged with a hate crime. The 1998 torture and beating death of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Wyoming, was never tried as a hate crime. Nor was the gruesome killing of James Byrd by white supremacists in Texas the same year.

There is also a fair amount of confusion and a lack of meaningful law enforcement training on how to identify a hate crime and what to do about it.

The racial epithet targeting a black Vermont high school student and spray-painted across the school’s football field last summer initially resulted in a felony charge of unlawful mischief because, as the police chief Trevor Whipple explained, according to the Burlington Free Press: The hate crime law “applies to an individual, a crime against a person, and in this case we have a crime against an object, that being the field, and the victim being the school district.”

Nearly two months later, the federal prosecutor added a hate crime charge.

Often, as in the case of Maan Khalsa, a Sikh man who was attacked last year in Richmond, California., it takes public pressure to get the charge. Khalsa, 41, was assaulted by two men who reached through his car window, punched him repeatedly and injured him with a knife before also cutting off his hair, which Khalsa had kept long as religiously mandated. In Khalsa’s words, it was “one of the most humiliating things anyone can do to a Sikh.”

Yet the district prosecutor was initially reluctant to charge Khalsa’s attackers with a hate crime, said Charles Jung, president of the California Asian-Pacific Bar Association. But the charge was added after Jung’s organization and the Sikh Coalition wrote up a demand letter and issued a news release.

“I think from the trial lawyer’s perspective, if you’re trying to prove a case, the simpler the better. If you add complicating factors, I suspect the worry is you’re going to confuse the jury,” Jung said.

But the groups targeted by hate crimes want to see them branded as such, and they have good reason he added. “It’s important to recognize the violence that these kind of hateful acts do against an entire community and not just an individual. It recognizes the broad impact of this act,” Jung said.

Such charges, as well as the reporting of incidents that meet the hate crime definition but are not charged as such, sends a message to victims that they’ll get help if they report a crime, experts say. And for that reason, civil rights advocates have been pushing states to do more – like implement a mandatory reporting system – to get the data out there.

“Data collection is a real barometer of overall response,” Levin said. “The bottom line is we need training and modern policies, and you need executive leadership with someone saying this is important.”

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MANILA/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Three UCLA basketball players detained in China on suspicion of shoplifting arrived back in the United States on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had sought the help of Chinese President Xi Jinping in the case.

The players landed at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Shanghai Tuesday evening, their heads down. The three – LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill – declined to speak to throngs of reporters before boarding a bus.

“What they did was unfortunate,” Trump told reporters earlier in Manila. He said the trio, who had been held since last week, could have faced long prison sentences. Trump described Xi’s response as “terrific.”

Trump had raised the issue with Xi at a dinner held during the U.S. leader’s Nov. 8-10 state visit to Beijing. Trump was in the Philippines capital for a summit of Asian leaders.

Asked about the trio and Trump’s discussing the issue with Xi, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing in Beijing that he was unable to provide any further information.

The three basketball players from the University of California, Los Angeles, were detained by police on Nov. 7 in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou over allegations of shoplifting. They were not on the team’s return flight to the United States on Saturday.

A senior White House official said the players had been given relatively light treatment due to Trump’s intervention.

“It’s in large part because the president brought it up,” the official told Reuters.

The UCLA team had been in China for a game against Georgia Tech in Shanghai on Saturday, which UCLA won 63-60. The teams had traveled to Hangzhou earlier in the week to visit the headquarters of the game’s sponsor, Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

The three students, all freshmen, were taken in for questioning by police about alleged shoplifting from a Louis Vuitton store.

They were released from police custody early on Wednesday and had been confined to a luxury hotel pending legal proceedings.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott, who had not spoken with the three players, said what had occurred was a “very regrettable situation.” Pac-12 is the college athletic conference in which UCLA participates.

“I’m just glad it’s resolved and that they’re on the way home safely,” he told Reuters by telephone from an Anti-Defamation League Sports Leadership Council event in San Francisco.

Since the matter did not occur on the court, it would be up to UCLA whether the players will be punished, Scott said.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement Tuesday that the university’s Athletics and Office of Student Conduct would review the incident and determine any potential discipline. He said such proceedings would be confidential.

“I want to be clear that we take seriously any violations of the law,” he said.

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U.S. sports broadcaster ESPN launched its flagship SportsCenter program on messaging app Snapchat on Monday, re-imagining the show that provides sports highlights and commentary into a short-form series.

The new show deepens the relationship between ESPN parent Walt Disney Co. and Snapchat parent Snap Inc.

The sports network, which has made Snapchat content since 2015, is trying to reach a younger audience, while the social media app, whose messages disappear after viewing, is adding more content in an effort to grow its user base beyond its core youth demographic.

The partnership is a two-year deal and Snap and ESPN will share revenues, Snap said, though it declined to give specifics.

SportsCenter will air twice a day on Snapchat during weekdays, and once a day on weekends. A roster of six hosts will give commentary and perspectives, including ESPN anchors Katie Nolan and Elle Duncan, and ESPN Radio host Jason Fitz, Snap said.

Sean Mills, Snap’s head of content programming, said SportsCenter helps round out the app’s stable of daily shows, which already includes news shows from CNN and NBC News, as well as an entertainment show called “The Rundown” from E! Network.

Along with daily shows, Snap launched a joint venture studio with NBCUniversal last month to produce scripted shows to air on the app.

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For more than 30 years, colleges and universities have leaned on an obscure tax rule that allows sports boosters to make tax-deductible contributions to their teams. Athletic fundraisers around the country say that’s an advantage that generates millions in annual revenue – and one that’s threatened by Republican tax legislation.

The issue revolves around donations that confer the right to buy top-tier football and basketball tickets. Modeled after seat licenses in pro sports, these “contributions” have historically been 80 percent tax deductible and have become one of the three main revenue streams in college sports. Ticket sales and money earned from media rights are the other two.

The bill approved by the House Thursday would remove the tax incentive tied to those donations. Congressional tax writers say other kinds of tax relief in the bill are more important. “If seat license revenue is important to state-based colleges and universities, then states themselves can provide this tax benefit rather than federal taxpayers,” a House Ways and Means Committee spokesperson said in an email.

A plan being debated in the Senate includes a similar measure. If passed, the change would make effectively make those contributions more expensive, and colleges and universities fear that would have a chilling effect on giving.

Take Louisiana State University, for example. Between the athletic department and its foundation, the perennial power receives more than $60 million per year in donations tied to seat licenses. If that drops 20 percent as a result of the new tax code, senior associate athletic director Robert Munson says, “that is a number we cannot possibly absorb.”

It could erase the roughly $10 million a year that the Tigers contribute to the academic part of the institution, he said, and could even make the department reliant once again on funding from the school’s general coffers.

“On the surface it may look like, ‘Oh, a bunch of rich people don’t get a tax deduction,’ but what it’s really going to do is hurt athletes,” Munson said.

The federal government expects to increase federal revenue by $200 million a year as a result of the change, according to estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation. It’s not clear how much it will cost colleges and universities.

Jon Bakija, an economist at Williams College, calculated that the change could result in a 20 to 30 percent drop in giving. Mark Mazur, director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, suggests the change will be negligible. “Demand for those tickets are so high,” Mazur said. “These aren’t donations with no strings attached.”

Even a small decline could hurt many schools. The University of Virginia receives roughly $20 million in annual athletic donations tied to seat priority, and it still needs millions in student fees to cover its costs. The department doesn’t anticipate getting any more help.

“We have zero room for error,” said Dirk Katstra, executive director of the Virginia Athletics Foundation. Like their peers around the country, UVa administrators are working with the university’s governmental affairs team to lobby local senators and representatives.

The change would take effect in 2018 if passed, meaning schools would probably change the terms of their existing donor agreements so that the annual cost to the donors remains the same. Future contributions would be a bigger issue.

James Maurin, a retired Louisiana businessman who has given more than $1 million to LSU athletics over the years, says it won’t change his giving — “I’m affluent enough, and I’m a big enough fan.” But he said he expects the new tax plan could result in a 30 percent dip in donations overall.

“I fear that it will be devastating,” said Maurin, who served as chairman of the school’s Tiger Athletic Foundation from 2011-12.

Previous efforts to make these donations non-deductible have failed. When the Internal Revenue Service tried in 1986, LSU led a successful lobbying effort in opposition. In 1988, Congress voted to explicitly add colleges and donations tied to premium sports tickets to the tax code. That created the 80 percent deduction on the books today.

Schools reacted by creating seat licenses if they didn’t have them already, an added benefit to donors that in turn led to greater fundraising. Universities with existing programs made them bigger. LSU has renovated its football stadium three times in the past 20 years to add premium seating, such as suites and skyboxes. Now more than 10,000 seats out of the 102,000 in the stadium require donations.

In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney discussed cutting the provision should he win office.

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“Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst”

By Robert M. Sapolsky

Penguin Press. $35

If you ever thought that neuroscience was too boring or complicated for pleasurable reading, “Behave” will change your mind. You’ll find yourself guffawing at Sapolsky’s quirky humor, and you’ll begin to question whether that decision you made so many years ago not to go into the sciences might have been too hasty. A professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, Sapolsky brings together a variety of scientific disciplines to tackle a fundamental mystery: What drives humans to harm each other or help each other? He finds the answers in our biology and takes readers on a journey through the nervous system, hormones, evolution and the environment. For any layperson who wants to understand why we behave the way we do, Sapolsky has created an immensely readable, often hilarious, romp through the worlds of psychology, primatology, sociology and neurobiology.

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“The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia”

By Masha Gessen

Riverhead. $28

Vladimir Putin has inspired a number of books seeking to explain his remarkable rise – and his remarkable hold on power. Few accounts are as ambitious, insightful and unsparing as Gessen’s “The Future Is History.” This is a sweeping intellectual history of Russia over the past four decades, told through a Tolstoyan gallery of characters. It makes a convincing if depressing case that Homo Sovieticus, the unique species created a century ago with the Bolshevik Revolution, did not die out along with the Soviet Union. What makes the book so worthwhile are its keen observations about Russia from the point of view of those experiencing its heavy-handed state. Gessen’s provocative conclusion that Putin’s Russia is just as much a totalitarian society as Stalin’s Soviet Union or Hitler’s Germany may not convince all readers. But you don’t need to agree with this assessment to find her book a sad, compelling indictment of the country where she was born, a country so traumatized by its monstrous past that it seems intent on repeating it.

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“I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street”

By Matt Taibbi

Spiegel & Grau. $28

This gut-wrenching account of the death and life of Eric Garner is a deep dive into every aspect of the case, including its legal impact, which is minimal, and its cultural and political ones, which have been profound. Most revealing are the stories Taibbi tells about other African-Americans, mostly male and poor, who were stopped and frisked, strip-searched, sexually assaulted, set up, beaten or killed for the tragic reason that racist cops didn’t like them or the even more tragic one that those kinds of humiliations are ordained by U.S. law and policy. The stories relate to one another and to the Garner case, which gives “I Can’t Breathe” the feel of a police procedural. The narrative unfolds like an episode of “The Wire” but without the comic relief – or the show’s grudging empathy for the cops. Some readers might object to Taibbi’s tone of sustained outrage. But the author is mad as hell at the police and the politics that empower their brutality.

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“I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad”

By Souad Mekhennet

Henry Holt. $30

In her memoir of 15 years of covering jihadists, journalist Mekhennet sets out to answer a perennial question: Why do they hate us? As a Muslim woman and brave, resourceful reporter who speaks English, German, French and Arabic, Mekhennet seems well-suited to the task. She explains the nature of reporting on jihad in her role as a Washington Post national security correspondent, the time spent waiting for sources to call back, puzzling over whom to trust. On several occasions, she gets anonymous tips about imminent danger to her life and whether militants or hostile governments intend to kidnap, torture or rape her. Her portrayals of al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters and sympathizers in countries around the world make her memoir a work of significant merit. But what of her original question? In her telling, the root of hate is not Islam; it’s not U.S. politics or foreign policy, nor is it American racism or Islamophobia. The answer is elusive and troublingly mysterious.

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“Less”

By Andrew Sean Greer

Lee Boudreaux. $26

Too often, our standards of literary greatness exclude comic novels – which is usually fine because there are so few great comic novels. But you should make more room for “Less.” In the opening pages, a writer named Arthur Less is depressed about turning 49. His anxiety about aging has been exacerbated by news that his former boyfriend is about to get married to a younger man. Confronted with the prospect of sitting through their wedding, Less decides to send his regrets and flee. He blindly accepts the invitations he’s received from around the world: a hodgepodge of teaching assignments, retreats and readings. Those gigs provide the novel’s structure – a different country for each chapter – and Greer is brilliantly funny about the awkwardness that awaits a traveling writer of less repute. Unfailingly polite, hypersensitive to the risk of boring anyone, Less remains congenial throughout, but “the tragicomic business of being alive is getting to him.” This is the comedy of disappointment distilled to a sweet elixir.

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“Lincoln in the Bardo”

By George Saunders

Random House. $28

“Lincoln in the Bardo” is an extended national ghost story, an erratically funny and piteous séance of grief. The spirit of the story arises from a tragic footnote in American history when President Abraham Lincoln’s 11-year-old son, Willie, died of typhoid fever during the Civil War. Everything about Saunders’ first novel, which won the Man Booker Prize, confounds our expectations of what a novel should look and sound like. It’s composed entirely of brief quotations – some real, some imagined – from people who worked for the president, his friends, colleagues, enemies, biographers and, most strikingly, ghosts trapped in Georgetown’s Oak Hill Cemetery, where Willie was laid to rest. Despite that bizarre chorus, the heart of the story remains Lincoln, the shattered father who rides alone to the graveyard at night. As the spirits pass through the president’s body like light through a glass, they catch his thoughts and fears. We can hear Lincoln wrestling with his faith, struggling to maintain his composure against an avalanche of grief and a torrent of criticism from a nation devastated by war.

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“The Power”

By Naomi Alderman

Little, Brown. $26

Excitement about this dystopian novel has been arcing across the Atlantic since it won the Women’s Prize for Fiction earlier this year in England. Alderman’s premise is simple, her execution endlessly inventive: Teenage girls everywhere suddenly discover that their bodies can produce a deadly electrical charge. The capacity of women to shock and awe quickly disrupts the structure of civilization. The narrative moves from an American girl’s bedroom to a British gang’s hangout, to a European forest and beyond, tracing the way this new power surges through families and governments, singeing male pride, inflaming chauvinism and burning the patriarchy to a crisp. This surprising and provocative story deconstructs not just the obvious expressions of sexism but also the internal ribs of power that we have tolerated, honored and romanticized for centuries. Alderman’s story sparks with such electric satire that you should read it wearing insulated gloves.

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“Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama”

By David J. Garrow

William Morrow. $45

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This probing doorstop of a biography explores the calculations Barack Obama made in the decades leading up to winning the presidency. Garrow portrays Obama as a man who ruthlessly compartmentalized his existence and made emotional sacrifices in the pursuit of his goal. Every step – whether his foray into community organizing, Harvard Law School, even his choice of whom to love – was not just about living a life but also about fulfilling a destiny. The book is most revealing in its account of Obama’s personal life, particularly the tale of a woman of Dutch and Japanese ancestry the future president lived with before he met Michelle. After asking her to marry him, Obama had a change of heart. As Garrow puts it, for black politicians in Chicago, a non-African-American spouse could be a liability. Garrow, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., concludes with a damning verdict on Obama’s determination: “While the crucible of self-creation had produced an ironclad will, the vessel was hollow at its core.”

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“Saints for All Occasions”

By J. Courtney Sullivan

Knopf. $26.95

From the outside, nothing about this plot seems noteworthy: Irish Catholics settle in Boston; they drink too much; they struggle with the church; they gather for a loved one’s wake. That sounds as fresh as a pint of last week’s Guinness, which makes this quiet masterpiece all the more impressive. In a style that never commits a flutter of extravagance, Sullivan draws us into the lives of the Raffertys and, in the rare miracle of fiction, makes us care about them as if they were our own family. In the present, the story takes place over just a few days – the period between when 50-year-old Patrick Rafferty loses control of his car and when he’s laid out at his funeral. But within those hours, Sullivan spins the captivating history of Patrick’s mother and her sister, reaching all the way back to a little Irish village in the late 1950s.

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“Sing, Unburied, Sing”

By Jesmyn Ward

Scribner. $26

“Sing, Unburied, Sing” is built around an arduous car trip when a black woman and her children drive to a state penitentiary to pick up their white father. The narration passes back and forth between the convict’s 13-year-old son and his drug-addled mother, Leonie. Ward draws us deep into the bile of a woman who sometimes dislikes her children and often resents their claims on her. But Leonie’s failings, which she knows are numerous, have been aggravated by addiction, grief and a racist culture that offers her no opportunity and little justice. These are people “pulling all the weight of history.” Ward, one of the most powerfully poetic writers in the country, represents those necrotic claims with a pair of restless ghosts, the unburied singers of the title, who speak to Leonie and her son. The plight of this one family is tied to intersecting crimes that stretch over decades.

The post Book World: Best Books 2017 appeared first on News India Times.

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani authorities issued a final warning on Friday to members of an Islamist party blocking a main road into the capital, raising fears of a violent clash.

Hundreds of supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party have been blocking the route into Islamabad for nearly 10 days, demanding the minister of law be sacked for what they say is blasphemy.

“You all are being given a last warning,” the Islamabad deputy commissioner said in the order.

A court had already ordered the party to end the protest, the order added. “After this final announcement, you all are being warned to end the illegal sit-in immediately.”

Tehreek-e-Labaik blames the minister, Zahid Hamid, for changes to an electoral oath that it says amount to blasphemy. The government puts the issue down to a clerical error.

Pakistan’s blasphemy law is a lightning rod for Islamists, especially since 2011 when the liberal governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was murdered by a bodyguard for questioning it. The law mandates the death penalty for insulting Islam or the Prophet Mohammad.

A spokesman for the Labaik party, Ejaz Ashrafi, said the group would not comply with the deputy commissioner’s ultimatum.

“We’re not moving,” he told Reuters by phone from the sit-in.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal appealed to the protesters to end the sit-in before a delegation of Chinese investors arrived in Islamabad on Monday, making a last offer to negotiate on their demands.

But he added: “If some group tries to hold the state hostage, that behaviour will not be tolerated.”

A government official, Khalid Abbasi, said protesters on the road were carrying rods and sticks. Since they were given the warning, he said, hundreds more party workers had joined the sit-in.

The government has blocked several roads with shipping containers in an effort to corral the protesters, causing hours-long traffic jams in and around the capital.

In 2007, a confrontation between authorities and supporters of radical preachers at an Islamabad mosque led to more than 100 deaths.

“All resources can be used to break this sit-in,” the deputy commissioner’s warning said.

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BENGALURU – Global software major Infosys Ltd. would buy back 11.3-crore of its equity shares of Rs 5 face value by paying Rs 13,000 crore at the price of Rs 1,150 per share from November 30, said the IT major on Friday.

“Buyback of 11,30,43,478 equity shares of Rs 5 each at a price of Rs 1,150 per share under the tender offer route opens on November 30 and closes on December 14,” said the company in regulatory filing on the BSE.

Offer managers Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Ltd. and J.P. Morgan India Ltd. submitted to the BSE a copy of the letter of offer sent to its shareholders on the buyback.

“The company has received the approval of the regulator (Securities and Exchange Board of India) on Thursday on the buyback and the offer letters will be dispatched to the shareholders by November 23,” said the filing.

“The last date of receipt of tender forms is December 18 and the last date of settlement of bids on the stock exchanges is December 26,” added the filing.

The outsourcing firm made the public offer on October 10 after its investors voted overwhelmingly in favour of the buyback resolution through postal ballot and electronic voting conducted from September 8 to October 7.

“The offer size is 20.51 per cent of the total paid-up capital and free reserves, aggregating up to 11.3-croreAshares or 4.92 per cent of the total shares for an amount not exceeding Rs 13,000 crore,” said the company in an earlier filing.

The promoters, including co-founders N.R. Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani have offered to sell 1.77 crore shares – valued at Rs 2,038 crore in the buyback offer.

According to the shareholding pattern, the promoters group, comprising co-founders and their families hold 12.92 per cent of the shares, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) & Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) 37.33 per cent, Indian retail, corporate and other investors 23.08 per cent, Indian FIs, Banks and Mutual Funds 9.63 per cent, American Depository Receipts 16.69 per cent and Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) 0.52 per cent.

The company’s blue chip scrip, however, lost Rs 17.65 per share to close at Rs 970.95 per share at the end of Friday’s trading on the BSE as against Thursday’s price of Rs 988.60 after opening at Rs 989.80./Eom/380 words.

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