Canadian artist fired for Trump cartoon

  

A publishing company in New Brunswick, Canada, has terminated its contract with cartoonist Michael de Adder after a drawing he did of President Donald Trump standing over the bodies of two drowned migrants went viral on social media.
The drawing, which was posted on de Adder's Twitter account on June 26, shows Trump standing beside a golf cart, golf club in hand, looking down at the bodies of a father and daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande while trying to cross from Mexico into Texas. Trump asks, "Do you mind if I play through?"

The illustration is based on the searing photo of Alberto Martinez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, lying face down in the muddy waters of the Rio Grande, which has sparked outrage and become a focal point of the debate over asylum-seekers.

 

De Adder announced his termination from the newspapers owned by Brunswick News Inc. on Twitter.

"The highs and lows of cartooning," he wrote. "Today I was just let go from all newspapers in New Brunswick."

De Adder said he was "not a victim" and that this was "a setback not a deathblow."

The New Brunswick native also said that he was still drawing cartoons for other publications, but was hurt that he would no longer be doing so in his four local outlets.

"I just need to recoup a percentage of my weekly income and get used to the idea I no longer have a voice in my home province," he wrote.

 

 

 

 

..The Roving Reporter : FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO MAY NEVER HAVE EXISTED

In our present age of choking, overpowering, ubiquitous information, it's easy to search for the biography of a celebrity or politician because history is better preserved now than ever before. Everything you never wanted to know about Britney Spears' hairstyle history, for example, you can find out. And then you can never forget it.

Alas, it was not always this way. The facts about many historical famous people weren't written down until years — sometimes decades or even centuries — after they allegedly lived. Given this amount of time, the evidence of the person's existence itself may have completely deteriorated, and the legends themselves might have borne little resemblance to what actually happened. But we're habitual creatures who like good stories, so we just keep on telling the same ones, facts be damned. Here are some famous people whose names you will recognize but who may never have existed at all, at least in their popular form.

MULAN

When Disney introduced Western children to the legend of Mulan, she was already a big deal in Chinese literature. The tale of a warrior's daughter dressing as a man and fighting in her ailing father's place is a timeless bit of badassery and girl power. But the evidence of her existence is scarce to say the least.

A book about women in Chinese history mentions Mulan might've been a made-up figure partly based on Wei Huahu, an actual female warrior from ancient China. It's unknown, however, if Huahu ever fought in men's clothing. As for Mulan herself, the earliest known reference to her was in the ancient ballad "The Battle of Mulan." But the song doesn't specify when she lived, gives few details of the actual battles she fought, and didn't give a full name for her outside of "Mulan." Pretty vague!

Then there's a text (translated as Exemplary Women of Early China) written by Liu Xiang around 18 BC, and packed with over 120 biographies of famous women from ancient China. Mulan, despite supposedly being a major deal, has no biography. Granted, she supposedly lived several hundred years after Xiang first published his book, but there's a section at the end for "supplemental biographies." No one has ever added Mulan, even though what she did was quite exemplary indeed.

BY GRUNGE STAFF
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Surely the great William Shakespeare was real, right? He has writings — lots of them — and we have portraits of the man. How could he be phony? Amazingly, quite easily. Many people are convinced "William Shakespeare" was a pen name, and whoever wrote those stories might be lost to history.

As recapped by PBS, there was a guy named William Shakespeare, but we know little about him. We don't know where he learned to write, and his will mentions no plays or sonnets. Maybe the real Shakespeare didn't write much more than a grocery list. If so, it's unclear who the "real" Shakespeare is. Plenty of candidates have emerged over the years — like Francis Bacon, Ben Johnson, and Christopher Marlowe — but these possibilities haven't stuck. 

There's another legitimate possibility in the obscure Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. According to J. Thomas Looney, a schoolteacher who uncovered a great deal about the man, Vere wrote poetry that reads much like what the Bard wrote. According to this theory, Vere used an assumed name because, as nobility, he didn't want to be associated with a low-brow art like playwriting. Then, when he died, his followers published his plays under the pen name of some random, dead commoner named William Shakespeare.

ROBIN HOOD

The legendary English folk hero Robin Hood is well-known for robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, residing in Sherwood Forest with his gang of outlaws, and wooing Maid Marian. The stories are certainly fictitious, but was Robin Hood a real person or simply based on one? It's impossible to say if any one individual inspired the legend's creation. The stories are either totally invented, or are a combination of elements taken from different historical sources.

Identifying a single person as the basis for the famous outlaw becomes even more difficult given that, as the stories began to grow in popularity in the 13th and 14th centuries, random English outlaws began to call themselves Robin Hood. Nevertheless, some historians speculate that Robin Hood was based, in part anyway, on nobleman Fulk FitzWarin, who rebelled against King John (one of Robin Hood's foes). FitzWarin's life was later turned into its own medieval tale, Fouke le Fitz Waryn, which holds some similarities to the Robin Hood stories. If he was the basis, then a name change was a good decision. The name Fulk FitzWarin doesn't exactly strike fear into the hearts of villains.

CONFUCIUS

To quote Confucius: "If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success." That's deep … and deeply problematic. Research suggests that dishonest children become successful adults and that highly successful adults lie. That's a whole lot of wrong there, Confucius.

Of course, if Confucius never existed, then the quote's been misattributed, meaning the words can't accord with the truth. Thus, in being wrong, the quote would be right, which sounds super wrong. And the Confucian confusion doesn't end there. Experts believe he was born in Lu, China, and created the Ru School of Chinese thought. But depending on which document you read, Confucius comes off as an unflinching idealist, an ambitious politician, or a fifth-century B.C. superhero. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy cautioned that even The Analects, the go-to resource on Confucius, suffers from striking inconsistencies and improbabilities.

In fact, many claims attributed to Confucius are arguably apocryphal. Fittingly, the guy described as China's Socrates raises more questions than he answers.

WILLIAM TELL

William Tell is a Swiss folk hero best known for child endangerment. Tell allegedly lived in Switzerland during the early 14th century, when the Hapsburg dynasty of Austria ruled the land. As the story goes, an Austrian official placed a hat on a pole in city of Altdorf and commanded every Swiss subject to remove their caps as they passed by it. One day, Tell, a local peasant who was accompanied by his son, refused to do so. In response, the Austrians forced Tell to shoot an apple off his son's head at 120 paces or face execution. Tell loaded his crossbow and skillfully shot the apple. He then went on to lead a small revolt against the Austrians — presumably after buying his son some new pants.

Tell is essentially the Swiss version of Robin Hood and, much like the outlaw of Sherwood Forest, he probably never existed. The apple story is extremely similar to a Viking folktale, which most likely was imported to Switzerland at some point and used by Swiss patriots as a rallying cry against their Austrian rulers.

SUN TZU

Sun Tzu's The Art of War has long been revered as the preeminent guidebook on how to properly wage war. So who better to advise than someone like Tzu, an ancient Chinese military leader and warrior who knew how to fight and win? He also knew how to motivate his charges, reportedly beheading two men popular with the king, just to show the other courtesans nobody was safe from punishment and discipline.

But now, people wonder if Sun Tzu was real at all. As History explains, scholars currently know nothing about where The Art of War came from, only that it would randomly appear — usually on sewn-together bamboo slabs — for whatever military person or scholar needed it. There's no record of "Sun Tzu" promoting himself as the author, and even the story of him beheading those poor courtesans is unsourced and quite possibly a myth. 

It stands to reason "Sun Tzu" is a pen name, and Art of War's contents are cobbled together from generations of Chinese military lessons, theories, and strategies. Considering how people worldwide are still reading and learning from it, thousands of years after it first appeared, it's clearly solid advice. It just probably didn't come from the mind of one cruel military genius.

SYBIL LUDINGTON

Sybil Ludington is remembered for having been forgotten, an unsung heroine from the Revolutionary War eclipsed by a lesser contemporary. Known by many as the female Paul Revere, Ludington legendarily rode 40 miles alone in the rain over difficult terrain to warn New York Yankees that the British were coming for more than crumpets. At just 16 years old, she braved the dangers of tea-swilling troops and lurking lawbreakers, sounding the alarm from Putnam County to Dutchess County in New York's Hudson Valley. And it was 1777, so there was no 7-Eleven to save her from a snack attack. 

According to that account, history should laud Ludington more than Revere because she traveled double the distance he did under dismal conditions. But tell that to history and it might call you a filthy liar due to lack of reliable sources. As per Smithsonian Magazine, the first mention of Ludington's ride didn't appear until 1880, more than a century after it supposedly happened. That's no small oversight, considering that women of the age (understandably) wanted to vaunt their own contributions to American independence.

Nowadays, Ludington's face features on stamps and in coloring books. She has become a mascot for feminists and anti-Communists as well as a bogey-woman for certain political factions. She's as real or fake as people need her to be to make a point, much like history itself. 

HOMER

Homer is the Greek poet who wrote two of the books that your English teacher forced you to read in high school — the mythological epics The Iliad and The Odyssey. Despite the popularity and importance of these epics, their author remains shrouded in mystery. For one thing, Homer almost certainly wasn't the originator of these tales, which likely preceded him by about 1,000 years. He was simply the first to write them down. As for the poet himself, some say Homer was blind, while at least one author argues that Homer was actually a woman.

Some historians believe that Homer was not a single person, but rather a group of Greek scholars. In the end, we will probably never know the answer, but the legacy of Homer's works will continue, both in the nuclear plant and beyond.

KING ARTHUR

Unless you've been living under a rock — a heavy one — you're probably familiar with the Arthurian legend. Even if you haven't read the stories, you likely saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail at least once in college, or maybe you heard the bad reviews about the 2017 King Arthur movie, pictured above. In any case, the British king is said to have claimed the sword, Excalibur, from the Lady of the Lake and found the aforementioned Cup of Christ. These fantastical stories are clearly a mishmash of folklore, but was the Arthur of legend based on a real man? The first tales of Arthur appeared in the ninth century and chronicle his battle against the invading Saxon armies, so it's likely that the individuals — if they existed — who served as the basis for Arthur lived sometime before then.

Some historians suggest the Roman military commander Lucius Artorius Castus as a possible candidate. The King Arthur movie from 2004, starring Clive Owen, follows this line of reasoning and depicts him as a Roman soldier. Others suggest Riothamus, king of the Britons during the fifth century. In any case, we're reasonably confident that the historical Arthur — whoever he was — didn't have easy access to two hollowed-out coconuts.

MARY MAGDALENE

For seemingly forever, much of mankind has celebrated three major Marys: the Virgin, the Poppins, and the Magdalene. The first birthed a divine baby. The second brandished a magical umbrella. And the third knew men biblically for pay. Or did she? Most people know Mary Magdalene as the penitent prostitute who came to Jesus and atoned for her fleshly indiscretions. But as the BBC observed, there is zero scriptural justification for that belief.

The Bible never described Magdalene as a sinner, let alone a play-for-pay pal. As far as the Good Book is concerned, she was a good woman who did Christ a solid by washing his feet. Plus, she saw his resurrection, which sounds pretty important. The Independent, on the other hand, raised a more radical possibility: that Magdalene married Jesus. A 1,500-year-old text called "The Lost Gospel" claimed that Jesus and his favorite foot-cleanser actually became Mr. and Mrs. Christ and had a kid together. In this alternate history, the Virgin Mary is Mary Magdalene and not Jesus' mom.

So how did the apparent mix-up happen? The BBC posited that Magdalene got conflated with a different biblical Mary (the sister of Martha) and an unnamed prostitute. Smithsonian Magazine similarly postulated that the Bible's five different Marys and three carnally wayward women (who are all nameless) caused confusion. Mary Poppins thankfully doesn't have that problem.

POPE JOAN

Pope Joan supposedly became pope in 855 AD, a time when most women weren't allowed to do anything at all. But then, two years later, she got pregnant and was either murdered or banished that day, depending on the storyteller. It's an amazing tale, both from a feminist and historical perspective.

Except that may be all it is: a tale. According to ABC News, there's lots of debate about whether Pope Joan ever existed. Believers point to hundreds of documents detailing her life, and Renaissance poet Giovanni Boccaccio placing her #51 in his book 100 Famous Women. Plus, St. Peter's Square sports carvings of a woman wearing a papal crown while giving birth. That sounds very Joan.

The Catholic Church's official stance is that she's an urban legend, and legitimate scholars back them up. Professor Valerie Hotchkiss, of Southern Methodist University, believes Joan's story comes largely from a single book: History of Emperors and Popes, by a monk named Martin Polonus. However, Polonus might not have added Joan — somebody else possibly edited her in after his death. From there, other monks blindly added the story into their manuscripts, because it sounded good and they didn't think enough to fact-check it. True or not, we can all agree it's a great story.

PYTHAGORAS

Pythagoras' influence on mathematics can't be overstated, though high school students stumped by the Pythagorean Theorem might argue otherwise. But there's a growing movement of people who don't see Pythagoras as a mere bane of freshman geometry class — they see him as a work of fiction.
Story of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 1, Pythagoras never wrote anything that we know of. Everything we know about the man comes from outside sources like his followers, known as Pythagoreans (like Hulkamaniacs, only way dorkier). There's even doubt that his mathematical breakthroughs came from him or his followers. As told by M.F. Burnyeat, he didn't discover his own theorem, and celestial spheres weren't seriously thought about until decades after he died.

Then there's the Book Of Dead Philosophers, which states even classical scholars think Pythagoras is a made-up famous person. That's because of his lack of writings and also an ancient Italian cult called Pythagoreans. They might well have invented Pythagoras as a figurehead "leader" to justify wacky, fanatical beliefs like "A-squared + B-squared = C-squared." Also, that odd numbers are male and even ones are female. If Pythagoras was real, he was clearly an odd duck.

JOHN HENRY

John Henry has been immortalized in folk music since the 1800s. His "Ballad of John Henry" tells the story of an ex-slave working on the railroad who could wield a hammer with the best of them. He challenged a steam drill to see who could work faster, and he won, though he soon died from sheer exhaustion. The greatest heroes die in the end, and Henry's story has ascended to near-myth because of it.

Thing is, though, he might actually be a myth. As NPR explains, John Henry is almost certainly a "tall tale," though one based on "historical circumstance." There were obviously men working on railroads back in the 1800s, and steam drills were eventually introduced as a way to speed up labor and reduce costs. More than likely, the rail workers disapproved of a machine taking their jobs, so the idea of outworking a machine was an inviting one.

ST. CHRISTOPHER

St. Christopher is one of those jack-of-all-trades saints. He's the patron saint of travelers and fruit dealers. Followers adore him, and his talisman is a popular item among believers and tourists alike. There's just one issue: He may not have been a real saint, or even a real person.

As explained by the LA Times, many scholars are convinced he wasn't real. At the least, they feel that were he real, everything saintly about him is based on pure myth. Instead of someone who accepted Christ and converted 40,000 pagans to Christianity before being martyred, he might have been just a regular guy who, after being captured by the Romans and drafted into their military, converted to Christianity and was murdered for it. Those from the local church called him Christopher since they didn't know his real name, and Christopher meant "bearer of Christ" so it worked.

The issue of his existence is so controversial that, in 1969, the Vatican "kicked [him] off the universal calendar," meaning his feast day was no longer required, and you only had to venerate him if you really wanted to. But he was never de-sanctified because, according to Professor David Woods of University College Cork, Christopher "has a genuine historical core." We may never know.

KUNTA KINTE

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Roots, Alex Haley poignantly wrote: "In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage." His own ancestral hunger led him to Juffureh, Gambia, where his great-great-great-great grandfather Kunta Kinte (depicted above) was purportedly born. Per Haley's own description, Kinte lost his freedom in 1767 when he was enslaved by British captors. Bondage didn't break his spirit, however. After arriving in America, Kinte repeatedly defied his oppressors, escaping multiple times.

About 200 years after Kinte's kidnapping, the TV miniseries Roots became an instant classic. According to CNN, the broadcast marked a watershed moment in American perceptions of slavery. It also deeply impacted Gambia, where an island was named after Kinte and his birthplace became a tourist attraction. These are effects are real, but there's a really strong chance that Kinte isn't.

You might already know that Haley's Roots had a strained relationship with the truth and got pretty chummy with plagiarism, but it's worse than you might think. As the Washington Post reported, journalist Mark Ottoway ripped Roots' avowed historicity to shreds, dismissing Kinte's backstory as highly implausible. Haley's single source of information was a demonstrably unreliable villager. And at the time Kinte was supposedly enslaved, his village was already a British trading post where Gambians worked alongside, not against, slavers. Unless Haley's chronology was way off, a real-life Kinte would have likely remained free. Whatever Haley hungered for, it wasn't accuracy.

LYCURGUS

Lycurgus is famous as the lawgiver who shaped much of ancient Sparta's legal policy. Someone had to come up with these laws, so why not Lycurgus, a guy well-versed in doing so? Well, maybe Lycurgus was just a mascot.

According to Britannica, several writers and historians from the fourth century BC and prior wrote of Lycurgus, though rarely did they agree on specifics. Herodotus, for example, wrote that his policies were shaped by what Crete did. He also said Lycurgus belonged to the Agiad house, one of two Spartan houses that controlled the nation's royalty. Meanwhile, a historian named Xenophon believed his ideas came from the Dorians after they invaded Laconia and turned the Achaean people there into serfs. By Xenophon's time, many people believed Lycurgus was part of Sparta's other ruling house, Eurypontid, and was king regent there. Basically, his origin story is more muddled than Wolverine's.

It gets even more confusing because some scholars believe a guy named Lycurgus really existed and really played a role in introducing sweeping reform to quell a major serf revolt in the seventh century BC. But the famous Lycurgus who basically shaped Spartan law by himself, many believe, wasn't real, he was just used as a catch-all figure for ancient Greeks to name-check when discussing politics, as they were apparently wont to do. It's certainly easier than rattling off the many hundreds of names who played an actual role.

LAO DAN

The founder of Taoism, ancient Chinese philosopher Lao "Laozi" Dan is a revered figure indeed. Those who do so, however, may be looking up to a made-up master.

According to GB Times, there's a ton of confusion regarding Lao Dan, including his name. Some believe Lao Dan was his real name, while others think scholar Sima Qian — among the first to write of Dan — confused stories he heard about Laozi with that of another philosopher, Li Er.  According to this theory, he mistakenly combined the names to come up with Laozi, or Lao Dan. But Laozi was also a term of respect for Laoist teachers, complicating the matter even further.

Then there's his writings. Supposedly, Dan wrote the Tao Te Ching, but reading it's like reading the same book by several different authors. There are many shifts in tone, style, and content, and we currently have little proof the book's language was even used when the book was supposedly published. Likely, then, Laozi's writings were written long after Lao Dan supposedly lived and died, and probably several people cobbled "his" life-affirming teachings together into one semi-coherent package. 
It's like if all the stories in Chicken Soup For The Soul were credited to one guy named Bill.



Do you believe it or not ???

The Roving Reporter

Canada's Birthday … July 1st

European heatwave: Spain battles major Catalonia wildfire

 

Hundreds of firefighters are battling wildfires in Spain's Catalonia region, as temperatures soared to 40C (104F) and above across parts of Europe. Officials say the fires are the worst in the region for 20 years and may spread rapidly.

Much of Europe is experiencing extreme heat. Germany, France, Poland and the Czech Republic have all recorded their highest ever June temperatures. Meteorologists say hot air drawn in from northern Africa is responsible.

The heat is expected to rise further in many countries over the next three days, meteorologists warn.

 

By mid-afternoon temperatures had reached 39C (102.2F)  in Turin in Italy and 41C in the Spanish city of Zaragoza.
Grospierres in southern France recorded a high of 42.3C (108.14F) on Thursday afternoon - a national June record.
The ski resort of Val D'Isere - which sits at 1,850m altitude - experienced its highest temperature ever recorded with 29.2C.

What is happening in Catalonia?

At least 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) are affected by the wildfires, near the town of La Torre de l'Espanyol, 80km from the coastal city of Tarragona.
Officials said that in the intense heat the area of the fire could increase to 20,000ha. At least 45 people have been evacuated and five roads have been closed. There have been no reports of casualties
Regional interior minister Miquel Buch told Catalan radio the fire might have been caused by "an accumulation of manure in a farm that generated enough heat to explode and generate sparks".
In total, 11 provinces in the east and centre of Spain have experienced or are set to experience temperatures above 40C. In parts of the north-east, they may reach 45C (113F)

Temperatures are expected to top 40C (104F) in Italy too, particularly in central and northern regions. Several cities, including Rome, have issued the highest heat warnings.

 

 

Meanwhile the whole of France - where a heatwave in 2003 was blamed for 15,000 deaths - is now on orange alert, the second-highest warning level.  In Paris, fountains and sprinklers connected to hydrants have been set up. Some schools have delayed important exams and even closed. In Toulouse, where temperatures are expected to reach 41C on Thursday, charities have been handing out water to homeless people.

Is climate change to blame?

Linking a single event to global warming is complicated.
While extreme weather events like heatwaves sometimes occur naturally, experts say these will happen more and more often because of climate change. Records going back to the late 19th Century show that the average temperature of the Earth's surface has increased by about one degree since industrialization.

 

A climatology institute in Potsdam, Germany, says Europe's five hottest summers since 1500 were in 2003 and the last four years. Scientists have warned that rapid warming linked to human use of fossil fuel has serious implications for the stability of the planet's climate.

Migrant children warehoused in horrific conditions

 

 

 

Elora Mukherjee, a lawyer who met with children in a Border Patrol facility in Texas, describes how the Trump administration left children "dirty, hungry, sick" and "scared" there. She explains that some children she saw couldn't play because "they were trying to conserve their energy to stay alive."

 

Mukherjee, who visited the facility in Clint, just outside El Paso, said that children were "locked up in horrific cells where there's an open toilet in the middle of the room" where they ate and slept.

"There was nobody taking care of these children... they were not being bathed on a regular basis," Prof Warren Binford of Williamette University in Oregon said.

"Several hundred of the children had been kept in a warehouse that was recently erected on the facility grounds."

"The cells are overcrowded... there's a lice infestation there, there is an influenza outbreak. Children are being locked up in isolation with no adult supervision, who are very, very ill and they're just lying on the ground on mats."
 Mukherjee said, "They were wearing the same dirty clothing they crossed the border with."
"It is degrading and inhumane and shouldn't be happening in America."

In a statement, the border authority acknowledged that the Clint facility was not suited to the task.
"US Customs and Border Protection leverages our limited resources to provide the best care possible to those in our custody, especially children," it said.
"As our leadership have noted numerous times, our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations, and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis."
The agency said it had moved children to more suitable facilities as soon as space was available.
On Monday, Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar, who had been deeply critical of the reported conditions, said she had been told that only 30 children remained in the Clint facility.
The New York Times reports 100 children were transported back to the facility after it made changes to alleviate its overcrowding. They had been held there for weeks.

On Tuesday, Democrats in the House of Representatives pushed through a $4.5bn bill in emergency aid for the border, but the issue has divided liberals. One lawmakers, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said: "I will not fund another dime to allow ICE to continue its manipulative tactics."

Others, like Appropriations Committee chair Nita Lowey, said her fellow Democrats should not allow anger at President Donald Trump "to blind us to the horrific conditions at facilities along the border as the agencies run out of money".

The most powerful elected Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, met her rank-and-file members on Monday to discuss changes to the bill ahead of a Tuesday vote.

Democratic leaders said they would add language to the bill to ensure higher standards of medical care and nutrition for migrants in US custody. They also want to set a three-month limit for any unaccompanied child migrant to spend at a shelter. Some Democrats are opposed to the $155m in the bill that would go to the US Marshals Service, a law enforcement agency that detains migrants who illegally re-enter the country after deportation.

The White House has already threatened to veto the bill, saying it "does not provide adequate funding to meet the current crisis and... it contains partisan provisions designed to hamstring the Administration's border enforcement efforts".

 

 

I made it all happen and I'm proud to own it



The families who weren't meant to survive

 

 

A group of Holocaust survivors and their families gather in Prague’s Old Town Square to recreate a photo that was taken in 1945, when the survivors had just been liberated from Nazi concentration camps.

The survivors were part of a group of children flown to the UK to start new lives after World War Two. Unlike the Kindertransport - which rescued thousands of children in the early years of the war - this group had been though the concentration camps and survived against all odds.

BBC reporter Hannah Gelbart, a granddaughter of one of the survivors, tells the story of the orphaned children who had everything taken from them, and re-built their lives together.

Debate over whether US child migrant detainees are entitled to soap, toothbrushes and beds - Really?



 

A Trump administration lawyer has disputed in court whether detained migrant children are entitled to toothbrushes and soap. The Department of Justice argued the government was adhering to a landmark ruling requiring migrants to be kept in "safe and sanitary" facilities. The attorney pointed out the law did not mention soap.

 

But a panel of judges in California questioned the rationale, saying the children were sleeping on concrete. In July 2017, US District Judge Dolly Gee found the Trump administration had breached the 1997 Flores agreement by not providing migrant children with appropriate food or hygienic supplies, housing them in cold facilities without beds.

The agreement states that immigrant children cannot be held for more than 20 days and must be provided with food, water, emergency medical care and toilets. But Department of Justice lawyer Sarah Fabian argued on Tuesday that the federal government had not violated Flores

 

This image from the US Customs and Border Protection shows the foil blankets given to children

Ms Fabian maintained in a Ninth Circuit court in San Francisco that the government had fulfilled the Flores agreement because it did not specifically list items such as soap or toothbrushes.
"One has to assume it was left that way and not enumerated by the parties because either the parties couldn't reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine," she said.
"These are the challenges of interpreting a very old agreement."
Ms Fabian argued that children in shorter-term immigration detention did not require soap or toothbrushes.

Circuit Judge William Fletcher questioned the government's reasoning.
"Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you've got an aluminium foil blanket?"
He added that it was "inconceivable" that the government would describe those conditions as "safe and sanitary".
Fellow Judge A Wallace Tashima remarked: "It's within everybody's common understanding that if you don't have a toothbrush, you don't have soap, you don't have a blanket, those are not safe and sanitary [conditions]."
Ms Fabian agreed "there's fair reason to find that those things may be part of safe and sanitary" conditions, but said the Flores agreement was "vague".
The hearing comes on the heels of a bitter debate sparked by Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called US-Mexico border migrant detention centres "concentration camps".
Ms Ocasio-Cortez said on Instagram on Monday: "The fact that concentrations camps are now an institutionalized practice in the Home of the Free is extraordinarily disturbing and we need to do something about it."
The New York Democrat emphasized that she was not comparing them to Nazi death camps.

 

She likened them instead to US Japanese internment camps during World War Two.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez was supported by actor George Takei, who was sent to such a camp with his
family.

'Acting Director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Mark Morgan criticized this characterization of the centres as "completely inappropriate", "reckless" and "flat out wrong".'

'Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming also lashed out at Ms Ocasio-Cortez, saying the comparison was demeaning to Holocaust victims.'

 

'Ms Ocasio-Cortez fired back by asking: "What do YOU call building mass camps of people being detained without a trial?"'

Thousands of Central American migrants have been seeking asylum in the US, fleeing extreme poverty and insecurity. US immigration authorities made a total of 396,579 apprehensions on the south-western border in 2018, and 303,916 the year before. Border Patrol stations have become overcrowded and temporary shelters have been created in states such as Texas.  This month, the US reached an agreement with Mexico to help stem the flow of migrants by deploying Mexican National Guard troops to border regions.

Three Russians, one Ukrainian will face murder charges over downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17

Russia, has claimed it did not have a role in the death of 298 people on the flight

 

 

Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, accused of downing of flight MH17,

Three Russians and a Ukrainian will face murder charges for the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine which killed 298 people, in a trial to start in the Netherlands next March, an investigation team said on Wednesday.
The suspects are likely to be tried in absentia, however, as the Netherlands has said Russia has not cooperated with the investigation and is not expected to hand anyone over.
“These suspects are seen to have played an important role in the death of 298 innocent civilians,” said Dutch Chief Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke.
“Although they did not push the button themselves, we suspect them of close cooperation to get the (missile launcher) where it was, with the aim to shoot down an airplane.”
Dutch Justice Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus said in a letter to parliament the Netherlands had taken unspecified “diplomatic steps” against Moscow for failing to fully comply with legal requests or providing incorrect information.

 

Crash site

The Dutch-led international team tasked with assigning criminal responsibility for the plane’s destruction named the four suspects as Russians Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Igor Girkin,
and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko. It said international arrest warrants for the four had been issued.
Girkin, 48, a vocal and battle-hardened Russian nationalist, is believed to live in Moscow where he makes regular public appearances. He is a commentator on Russian and foreign affairs via his own website and YouTube channel.
“The rebels did not shoot down the Boeing,” Girkin told Reuters on Wednesday without elaborating.
Ukrainian authorities said they would try to detain Kharchenko, the suspect believed to be on their territory.
MH17 was shot out of the sky on July 17, 2014, over territory held by pro-
Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Everyone on board was killed.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “The Russian Federation must now cooperate fully with the prosecution and provide any assistance it requests.” There were 10 Britons on the flight.

Russian missile
Most of those on board were Dutch. The joint investigation team formed by Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine found that the plane was shot down by a Russian missile.
Last year Russian President Vladimir Putin called MH17’s downing a “terrible tragedy” but said Moscow was not to blame and there are other explanations for what happened.
The governments of the Netherlands and Australia have said they hold Russia legally responsible.
Asked if she expected the suspects to attend the trial, Silene Fredriksz, whose son Bryce was on the plane, said: “No, I don’t think so. But I don’t care. I just want the truth, and this is the truth.”
Moscow has said it does not trust the investigation.

“Russia was unable to take part in the investigation despite expressing an interest right from the start and trying to join it,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The investigation team said Girkin was a former FSB security service colonel who served as minister of defence of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in the summer of 2014.
It said Dubinsky was head of the military intelligence agency of DNR, while Pulatov was head of a second department of the DNR military intelligence agency. Kharchenko was head of a reconnaissance battalion for the second department, it said.
Prosecutors have said the missile system that brought down the plane came from the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, based in the western Russian city of Kursk.

Kushners received millions in funds from real estate holdings and book deal while working as aides to president

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner made as much as $135m last year while working as aides to Donald Trump, financial disclosures released by the White House have revealed.

Ms Trump's stake in her family's Washington DC hotel made her $3.95m. Down the street from the Oval Office, it is currently at the centre of two federal lawsuits claiming Trump is violating the constitution’s ban on foreign government payments to the president.

A personal business selling handbags, shoes and accessories, generated at least $1m in revenue for Ms Trump in 2018.

The US president's daughter was also given a $263,500 book advance for Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, which was published in 2017 and which a New York Times review called “witlessly derivative”.

Her husband Jared Kushner took in hundreds of thousands of dollars from his holdings of New York City apartments. He also owns a stake in the real estate investment firm, Cadre, worth at least $25m.

  

Ivanka Trump's house

 

The historic Puck Building in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan, owned by the Kushner family, generated as much as $6m in rent. A former warehouse-turned-luxury-apartment building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn brought in more than $350,000 in rent.

Former and current tenants in the building filed a lawsuit against Kushner Companies, alleging it used noisy, dusty construction to make living conditions unbearable in an effort to push them out so their apartments could be sold. The company has said the suit is without merit.

Cadre has also drawn conflict-of-interest questions. It launched a fund to take advantage of large tax breaks by investing in downtrodden areas. It has also  received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since Mr. Kushner entered the White House. The disclosures were released by the White House and filed with the US Office of Government Ethics.

Last month John Kelly, the president’s former chief of staff, said the President’s family was an “influence” that frequently needed to be “dealt with”. Mr Kelly said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's, The David Rubenstein Show, that he had been forced to remove some “very disruptive” officials “to staff a president the way I think a president should be staffed”.
He also said he was taken aback by the “intense personal ambition” some staffers displayed. He was referring to some staffers in high positions, including the Kushners.

It seems the Kushners have taken advantage of their connection to the office of the presidency to line their own pockets. Does anyone see something wrong with that? Does anyone see something wrong with the fact that they hold such important positions at the White House without any training or diplomatic experience or without going through the usual procedures and vetting for security clearance?

Why are sick and dying 9/11 heroes begging Congress for money?



A US congressional panel has voted to extend the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, a day after comedian Jon Stewart assailed lawmakers for their inaction. Stewart appeared on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, calling it "shameful" that many lawmakers did not attend to hear testimony from first responders.  The comedian testified in support of the bill, which extends medical funding for 9/11 first responders.

The measure now moves to the US House of Representatives for a full vote. The Victims Compensation Fund (VCF) covers medical costs of first responders, volunteers and survivors who were injured or sickened at Ground Zero following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack.

Wednesday's vote, almost two decades after the disaster, moves to extend the fund through to the 2090 fiscal year.

"They did their jobs with courage, grace, tenacity," he told the House Judiciary Committee of the first responders. "Eighteen years later, do yours."
Though it was supposed to be funded until 2020, those administering it say a recent spike in claims has left the fund in danger of running out.
"Your indifference cost these men and women their most valuable commodity: time," Stewart said on Tuesday.

Up to 80,000 people - including firemen, police officers, emergency workers, contractors and cleaning staff - are believed to have rushed to the aid of victims in the aftermath of 9/11.
In doing so, many exposed themselves to toxic debris in the air, including asbestos, lead, and pulverized concrete, which causes silicosis.  They join an estimated 400,000 people believed to have been exposed to toxic contaminants, or suffered injury or trauma in Manhattan that day, according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As of September 2018, 2,000 deaths were attributed to 9/11 related illnesses. By the end of last year, many estimate that more people will have died from toxic exposures than were actually killed in the attack.

Luis Alvarez, a former New York Police Department detective said at Tuesday's hearing that he had survived 68 rounds of chemotherapy to fight 9/11-related cancer.
"This fund is not a ticket to paradise," he said. "It is there to provide for our families when we can't."
The VCF was initially created in 2001, immediately following the attacks. This original VCF distributed over $7bn to families of more than 2,880 people who died and for 2,680 injured.
In 2006, Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York co-sponsored a bill that eventually became the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which effectively re-activated the VCF.
The act passed despite efforts from Congressional Republicans to block it. In December 2010, in the midst of political turmoil over the Zadroga Act, Stewart dedicated an entire episode of his Comedy Central show to the fund. Some credit him with its eventual approval after then President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2011. Though it was initially authorized to accept claims until October 2016, the fund's deadline was later extended until December 2020.

A total of $7.38bn was appropriated for this second iteration of the VCF.  As of 31 May, 2019, it has awarded more than $5bn to nearly 22,500 individuals who have suffered as a result of 9/11, including the families of 850 people who have died.
On Tuesday, Rupa Bhattacharyya, who administers the fund, testified to Congress that it will soon run out of money. Mr Bhattacharyya said the VCF received a record number of new claims received in 2018, and is already on track to surpass that number this year. The spike in claims has left the VCF at risk of a massive funding shortfall. As a result, future payouts to 9/11 victims and their families may be cut by as much as 70%.

The bill that passed the judiciary committee on Wednesday aims to make the VCF permanent and grant additional funding to the bill. A specific amount has not yet been allocated.
"There is no other choice", said New York Representative Carolyn Maloney, a sponsor of the bill. "This bill is about fulfilling our promise to 'Never Forget.' And we won't stop fighting until we guarantee that this program will be there for anyone and everyone who needs it."

How to live to be a hundred

Whenever someone turns 100, it’s customary to ask them the secret of their longevity. Here are some of their answers: Drinking spiked espresso every day. Better sex through constant divorce. Cigars. Drinking three beers and a shot of whiskey every day.
This is obviously all terrible advice, so we dug up some hard science on how you can actually expect to live to your 100th birthday.
Rule number one: Be lucky
Yeah, sorry, you can’t really affect this, but it is kind of a big factor. Any centenarian alive today had to not be killed in World War II, not be killed in a mining disaster, not be hit by a car and not die of a whole galaxy of 20th century diseases, including measles, smallpox, polio, diphtheria and AIDS.
For every 100-year-old Canadian alive today, thousands upon thousands of their colleagues didn’t make it, and it wasn’t always their fault. Also, some people are just genetically better at living. When Keith Richards inevitably hits 100, that’s blind luck.
Rule number two: Be rich
Being super rich didn’t stop the reaper from taking Paul Allen at age 65, but there is a pretty clear correlation between wealth and longevity. Money means you have clean water, safe transportation, stable housing and easy access to good medical care.
Basically, the richer your country, the more likely you are to reach 100. But there’s some weird exceptions to this: South Africa and Thailand, for instance, both boast really high numbers of centenarians despite having lower per-capita income than Mexico.
Rule number three: Don’t be fat
Here are some pictures of people celebrating their 100th birthday. They come from all races, religions and backgrounds, but they share one thing in common; they’re all pretty thin. The Japanese island of Okinawa is famous for its ridiculously high rate of centenarians, and it’s generally suspected to be because they have a fantastic diet. They eat small portions, lower calorie food and a whole whack of vegetables and fish.
Rule number four: Have an active social life
The famed Georgia Centenarian Study tracked down a bunch of centenarians in the U.S. state of Georgia and then tried to figure out how they had all gotten so old. Some of the factors that kept reappearing were extraversion, a full social schedule and a higher likelihood of engaging in volunteer work. Basically, people are being kept alive by bingo and church bake sales. It’s a similar deal in Sardinia, a region of Italy with an uncharacteristically high number of centenarians. Most elderly Sardinians still live with family, and they’re able to keep plugged in to the vibrant social life of their village. Socialize at least six hours a day, and you’ll be on your way to 100.
Rule number five: Have a reason to live
At a certain point, some people just get bored of life. For instance, here’s a quote from conservative author William F. Buckley at the age of 80: “I’m tired of life. I’m utterly prepared to stop living on.” Unsurprisingly, he was dead two years later.
Among centenarians, one constant is that they’re often super active well into their 90s. Britain’s Bill Frankland was still a working doctor at age 105. American Mabel Sawhill started a catering company at age 70 and was still running it at 102. You may also have noticed that the British royal family seems to live forever: These are people who never run out of stuff to do. In Okinawa, this concept even has a name: Ikigai, which roughly translates to “reason for being.”
Last tip: If all else fails to make you a centenarian, you can also just … lie.
The oldest person in history is generally recognized to be France’s Jeanne Calment, who officially died at 122 years old. But lately, compelling evidence has emerged that she actually died at a more conventional age of 99. The best theory is that she assumed her dead mother’s identity in the 1930s in order to dodge the French estate tax, and then one thing just kind of led to another and she had to live out the lie.
Good luck friends and remember to keep your sense of humor, don't hang on to old regrets, live one day at a time and find joy in simple things like a beautiful spring day or a sunset or a smile on a beloved child.

Sir Nicholas Winton saved over 600 children....WW II

 



'Thank You' - Queen Elizabeth and world leaders applaud D-Day veterans

  

 

 World leaders pay homage to veterans  and those who gave their lives on D Day 

 

Watching Spitfires' fly-by

  

PORTSMOUTH, England (Reuters) - Queen Elizabeth was joined by world leaders including Donald Trump and Angela Merkel to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, paying personal tribute to the veterans of the largest seaborne invasion in history which helped bring World War Two to an end.
The queen, Prince Charles, presidents and prime ministers rose to applaud veterans, their coats heavy with medals, as they stood on a giant stage beside a guard of honor after a film of the Normandy landings was shown.
“The wartime generation - my generation - is resilient, and I am delighted to be with you in Portsmouth today,” the 93-year-old queen, wearing bright pink, said.
“The heroism, courage and sacrifice of those who lost their lives will never be forgotten. It is with humility and pleasure, on behalf of the entire country – indeed the whole free world –  that I say to you all: thank you.”
Prime Minister Theresa May was joined for the commemorative events in Portsmouth by U.S. President Trump, who is on the final day of a state visit to Britain, and his wife, Melania.
Trump read a prayer given by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944: “The enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.”

  President Trump reads a prayer given by Roosevelt in 1944

French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, German Chancellor Merkel, and leaders and senior figures from 10 other countries also attended.

 The Queen greets Justin Trudeau after his commemorative speech, accompanied by Teresa May

BLOOD AND THUNDER 

In the early hours of June 6, 1944, more than 150,000 allied troops set off from Portsmouth and the surrounding area to begin the air, sea and land attack on Normandy that ultimately led to the liberation of western Europe from the Nazi regime.
By the time of the Normandy landings, Soviet forces had been fighting Germany in the east for almost three years and Kremlin chief Josef Stalin had urged British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to open a second front as far back as August 1942.
The invasion, codenamed Operation Overlord and commanded by U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, remains the largest amphibious assault in history and involved almost 7,000 ships and landing craft along a 50-mile (80-km) stretch of the French coast.
Shortly after midnight, thousands of paratroopers were dropped. Then came the naval bombardment of German positions overlooking the shore. Then the infantry arrived on the beaches.  Mostly American, British and Canadian men, some just boys, waded ashore as German  soldiers tried to kill them with machine guns and artillery. Survivors say the sea was red with blood and the air boiling with the thunder of explosions.
Thousands were killed on both sides. Line upon line of white crosses honor the dead in cemeteries across northern France. Even the codenames of the sectors of the invasion - Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword - can draw tears from veterans.
“I was terrified. I think everyone was,” said John Jenkins, 99, a veteran who landed at Gold Beach. “You never forget your comrades because we were all in it together.”
The commemorations featured an hour-long performance recounting the wartime events and a flypast by historic, military aircraft. Afterwards, world leaders met veterans of the landings.

The queen, President Trump, Melania and Prince Charles shook hands with half a dozen veterans who were waiting for them, exchanging a few words and asking them about their stories from D-Day.
Sixteen countries attended the commemorations: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
They agreed a proclamation to “ensure that the unimaginable horror of these years is never repeated”.
Angela Merkel said Germany’s liberation from National Socialism brought about something “of which we can be proud.”
“Reconciliation, and unity within Europe, but also the entire post-war order, which brought us peace, for more than seven decades so far,” she said. “That I can be here as German Chancellor, that together we can stand for peace and freedom – that is a gift from history that we must cherish and preserve.”
On Wednesday evening, some 300 veterans who took part on D-Day, all now older than 90, will leave Portsmouth on a specially commissioned ship, MV Boudicca, and retrace their 1944 journey across the English Channel, accompanied by Royal Navy vessels and a lone wartime Spitfire fighter plane.
The Allies’ ultimate achievement of liberty, will  be remembered and honored on this 75th anniversary of the D-Day landing.

 

Original photos  of D Day 

 

 

Canadian soldiers' graveyard in Normandy

 

Deep in the waters around Normandy, the mute reminders of D Day

provide a habitat for sea life