Officials in Brazil have blamed lack of funding for a huge fire that has ravaged the country's National Museum.One of the largest anthropology and natural history collections in the Americas was almost totally destroyed in Sunday's fire in Rio de Janeiro.This included the 12,000-year-old remains of a woman known as "Luzia" - the oldest discovered in Latin America.There had also been a string of complaints about the dilapidated state of the 200-year-old museum. "We never had adequate support," its deputy director said after the fire.Experts had warned for years of a serious fire risk to the building.Presidential candidate Marina Silva criticised lack of investment."Given the financial straits of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and all the other public universities the last three years, this was a tragedy that could be seen coming," Ms Silva, a left-wing politician standing in next month's election, tweeted.The fire started on Sunday evening, after the building - a 19th Century former royal palace - closed for the day. The cause is not known, but Culture Minister Sergio Sa Leitao was quoted in Brazilian media as saying it may have been ignited by a small paper hot air balloon landing on the roof. No injuries have been reported but most of the 20 million items the museum contained went up in flames. In pictures: Rio museum destroyed in huge blaze Treasure-trove museum - from a meteorite to a 12,000-year-old skeleton Brazil's President Michel Temer said in a tweet that it was a "sad day for all Brazilians" as "200 years of work, research and knowledge were lost".Mr Sa Leitao said it was a "tragedy that could have been avoided" but a reconstruction effort would begin. Prof Paulo Buckup, an expert in fish science at the museum, arrived at 19:30 (22:30 GMT) local time to find parts of the building where animal specimens were kept still intact."It's unfortunate but the firefighters were not in a position to do anything, to fight anything," he told BBC Brasil's Julia Carneiro. "They had no water, no ladders, no equipment. "So we took the initiative to get in to try and save what we could. We had to break down doors. The soldiers helped us carry things."Prof Buckup rushed into the burning building to save its extensive collection of molluscs rescuing "a few thousand" specimens, a "tiny" part of the collection. "I don't know how many tens of thousands of insects and crustaceans were lost," he says."I feel very sorry for my colleagues, some of whom have worked here for 30 or 40 years. Now all evidence of their work is lost, their lives have lost meaning, too."A deputy director at the museum, Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, expressed "immense anger", and accused Brazilian authorities of a "lack of attention"."We fought years ago, in different governments, to obtain resources to adequately preserve everything that was destroyed today." Demonstrators gathered at the gates of the museum on Monday morning, protesting against the budget cuts that they blame for the fire. Police were seen firing tear gas. One issue appears to be the lack of a sprinkler system. Mr Dias Duarte told Globo TV that a $5.3m (£4.1m) modernisation plan agreed in June would have included the installation of modern fire prevention equipment, but only after October's elections. A major dinosaur exhibition, which was forced to shut following a termite attack five months ago, had recently reopened only thanks to a crowdfunding campaign. Museum librarian Edson Vargas da Silva told local media that the building had wooden floors and contained "a lot of things that burn very fast", such as paper documents. The museum, Brazil's oldest, is managed by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the federal government has been struggling with huge budget imbalances in recent years.The deficit was about 8% of GDP in 2017, only slightly down from a record 10% two years earlier.But Rio de Janeiro state is also facing a budget crisis. Roberto Robadey, a spokesman for the Rio fire department, is quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying that the hydrants closest to the museum were not working and that firefighters had to get water from a nearby lake.By Katy Watson, BBC South America correspondentThe pale yellow building is still standing - but the windows are burned out, the roof has gone and its insides are black. Throughout the day, firefighters, investigators and even museum staff have been going into the building and every so often they have brought out bits of artefacts or anything they think they can salvage from the rubble. Hundreds of people gathered outside, watching the developments - many of them in tears. Some researchers and academics I spoke to said they were still hopeful that some material on the ground floor could be saved - that is if it hadn't been crushed by the force of the upper floors collapsing on top of it. With their knowledge of where the archives were kept, they've been tipping off firefighters on where to go to rescue material in the hope that at least some of Brazil's most important history can be saved.Its 20 million artefacts included fossils and dinosaur bones.The jewel in the crown for many visitors was "Luzia"."Luzia is a priceless loss for everyone interested in civilization," museum director Paulo Knauss told the AFP news agency.Using her skull, experts had produced a digital image of her face, which was used as the base for a sculpture that was also gutted by the fire.Another popular exhibit was the Bendegó meteorite, weighing more than five tonnes and discovered in Bahía state in the 18th Century. Images taken in the aftermath suggest it is still intact. The building was also home to items covering the centuries from the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1500s to the declaration of a republic in 1889.The ethnology collection had unique pieces from the pre-Columbian era and artefacts from indigenous cultures.Portugal's royal family transferred the court to the building in 1808, when the country faced the threat of invasion from Napoleon.The museum was established in 1818, with the aim of promoting scientific research by making its collection available to specialists. Jan 2018 - Much of Indonesia's Maritime Museum in Jakarta - which contained Dutch East Indian ship models and cannons - is gutted July 2017 - Hundreds of objects are destroyed - including three paintings on loan from the Louvre - at the Maritime Museum in Tatihou, France Apr 2016 - Rare specimens of flora and fauna are destroyed at the National Museum of Natural History in Delhi, India Oct 2014 - Cutty Sark - one of the world's last tea clippers to be built - is damaged by a fire in London for the second time in seven years July 1865 - New York City's Barnum's American Museum - whose collections included false artefacts like the "skeleton of a mermaid"- is burned to the ground

去年12月，Magic Leap One公开了其筹备六年的第一款MR眼镜——Magic Leap One创造者版本。滚石记者体验后写道，其现实出的虚拟物体是不透明的，能被现实物体遮挡，使得人难以区分。这个效果令人震惊，然而，由于产品没有上市，大家都不知道Magic Leap的光学显示究竟是如何实现的。Magic Leap官方描述称：我们的光场光子产生不同深度的数字光，并与自然光无缝融合，从而将逼真的虚拟物体叠加至真实世界中。Magic Leap一开始宣告他们采用了光纤扫描光场显示技术（FSD）、光子光场（通过聚焦/深度平面解决视觉辐辏调节冲突）、以及被称为“光场芯片”的衍射波导。这些技术Magic Leap一直秘而不宣，业内人士也少有知情者。雷锋网了解到，去年的一份专利文件（编号：2017/0276948）显示，Magic Leap并没有采用难以实现的光纤扫描光场显示技术，而是退而选择了硅基液晶(LCoS)显示方案。然而，Magic Leap的光学显示技术是如何实现的依然不明了。3月2日，据外媒Next Reality报道，美国专利商标局又公布了多个来自Magic Leap的专利文件，包括Magic Leap的外形结构、系统方法和波导显示器原理。一项专利文件名为“虚拟，增强和混合现实系统和方法”（点击可下载），其中包含了Magic Leap One的头戴设备Lightwear、计算中心Lightpack和控制器的高度详细图纸。雷锋网发现，这些图纸和我们目前看到的产品几乎完全一致，可以让我们更详细了解Magic Leap One的结构和设计。另一项名为“多层衍射目镜”（点击可下载）的专利文件描述了Magic Leap的“波导显示器”如何工作。根据描述，波导背后有一个光栅，一个波长选择反射器，图像通过波导投射到用户的眼镜。光栅将来自波导的光导向两个不同的方向。同时，反射器将来自第二方向的一部分光反射回第一方向。雷锋网了解到，该专利文件还描述到，Magic Leap One的目镜带有三个这种波导，能够产生三个波长范围。每个波长对应于红色、蓝色、绿色光，然后反射光在多个区域内产生全息图。正如在上一份解释系统和方法的专利中描述的一样，如系统和方法专利中所述，波长可以产生近场，中场和远场三个光场。虚拟的对象显示在光场之间，并在光场之间混合以给出深度错觉。Magic Leap首席执行官Rony Abovitz在近来的Code Media会议上说，“我们希望以一种非常生物友好的方式与你的视觉皮层进行交流，这样能创造很多神奇的体验。我们花了大量精力和资金建立”数字光场“，经过数百万年的进化，我们生物的眼睛才变成现在这样，这都与光如何与生物交互有关。“虽然，Magic Leap已经多次对外宣扬其产品的神奇之处，但是仅有少数人体验了其产品，且都因为保密协议只能模糊地描述。现在，专利文件已经曝光，若有专业人士能深入剖析其光学显示技术，请留言联系雷锋网(公众号：雷锋网)编辑。相关文章：关于 Magic Leap One，行业人士和读者们都是怎么看的？雷锋网原创文章，未经授权禁止转载。详情见转载须知。

ImageA protester dressed as a character from “The Handmaid’s Tale” attended the first day of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday.CreditEric Thayer for The New York TimesAbortion“I understand the importance that people attach to the Roe v. Wade decision, to the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision. I don’t live in a bubble.”Asked about the constitutional right to abortion, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh talked instead about precedent. He described the Supreme Court’s two key decisions: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed the core of that right.Collectively, he said, the two decisions held that “a woman has a constitutional right to obtain an abortion before viability subject to reasonable regulation by the state up to the point where that regulation constitutes an undue burden on the woman’s right to obtain an abortion.”But that was description, not endorsement. He did suggest that the Roe decision may be a particularly secure precedent. “It’s not as if it’s just a run-of-the-mill case that was decided and never been reconsidered,” he said. “That makes Casey a precedent on precedent.”Like earlier nominees, he recited the reasons offered in the Casey decision for leaving precedents undisturbed, including whether people have relied on the decisions, whether the decisions have proved workable as a practical matter and what impact overruling them would have on public perception of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy.“People rely on the decisions of the courts, and so reliance interests are critically important to consider as a matter of precedent,” Judge Kavanaugh said.“Precedent also reinforces the impartiality and independence of the judiciary,” he said. “The people need to know in this country that the judges are independent, and that we’re not making decisions based on policy views.”But Judge Kavanaugh did not say whether he would be prepared to reconsider Roe, and he declined an invitation to agree with a statement from the Casey decision that the right to abortion allows women to “participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation.”He said instead that the right to abortion was “settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court.” That statement is less categorical than it appears at first blush. To call a decision “settled law” is not to say it is set in stone.ImageThe annual National Rifle Association convention in Dallas in May. Judge Kavanaugh has defended a robust view of Second Amendment rights.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe Second Amendment“Handguns are used in lots of crimes that result in death and so are semiautomatic rifles. That’s what makes this issue difficult.”Judge Kavanaugh expressed dismay about gun violence. But he defended a robust view of Second Amendment rights.He was asked about his 2011 dissent in a case that upheld a ban in Washington on so-called assault weapons. The case was a sequel to District of Columbia v. Heller, the 2008 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to own handguns for self-defense in the home, striking down an earlier Washington law.The majority in the appeals court ruled that the later ban was constitutional. On Wednesday, Judge Kavanaugh explained that he dissented because Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion in the 2008 decision required it.He acknowledged that Justice Scalia had said that many gun control laws were unaffected by the 2008 ruling. “Nothing in our opinion,” Justice Scalia wrote, “should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”Judge Kavanaugh also said that the 2008 decision allowed machine guns to be prohibited, along with “dangerous and unusual weapons.” But he said semiautomatic weapons presented a different question.“Most handguns are semiautomatic — something not everyone appreciates,” Judge Kavanaugh said on Wednesday. Similarly, he said, “semiautomatic rifles are widely possessed in the United States.”“I have to follow the precedent of the Supreme Court as it’s written, and that’s what I tried to do in that case,” he said.Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, asked Judge Kavanaugh about the practical impact of his position in light of recent school shootings. He responded that school officials have taken steps to protect students.“Senator,” he said, “of course the violence in the schools is something we all detest and want to do something about, and there are lots of efforts, I know, underway to make schools safer. I know at my girls’ school they do a lot of things now that are different than they did just a few years ago in terms of trying to harden the school and make it safer for everyone.”“But as a judge my job, as I saw it,” he said, “was to follow the Second Amendment opinion of the Supreme Court whether I agreed with it or disagreed with it.”Presidential Power“No one is above the law in our constitutional system.”Judge Kavanaugh made broad pronouncements on the independence of the judiciary, and he praised the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1974 decision ordering President Richard M. Nixon to comply with a subpoena seeking tapes of his conversations in the Oval Office.“It was one of the greatest moments because of the political pressures of the time,” he said of the decision, United States v. Nixon. “The courts stood up for judicial independence in a moment of national crisis.”That ruling would, of course, figure in the resolution of any dispute between Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, and President Trump. It was hard to escape the conclusion that Judge Kavanaugh was trying to assure senators that he might be prepared to rule against the president who nominated him, as Chief Justice Warren Burger did in the Nixon tapes case.But when Judge Kavanaugh was asked more specific questions about Mr. Trump, he declined to answer.“Can a sitting president be required to respond to a subpoena?” Ms. Feinstein asked.Judge Kavanaugh said that was “a hypothetical question about what would be an elaboration or a difference from U.S. v. Nixon’s precise holding.”“I can’t give you an answer on that hypothetical question,” he said.He gave a similar answer to whether Mr. Trump could pardon himself.“The question of self-pardons is something I’ve never analyzed,” he said. “It is a question that I’ve not written about. It is a question therefore that is a hypothetical question that I can’t begin to answer in this context as a sitting judge and as a nominee to the Supreme Court.”

Prior to Wednesday's attack, only two US service members had been killed in action in Syria since the start of the campaign in 2014.The US-led coalition confirmed earlier Wednesday that US service members were killed in the attack, but did not provide details regarding the number of casualties at the time and said the service members were "conducting a routine patrol" at the time of the explosion."U.S. service members were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in Syria today. We are still gathering information and will share additional details at a later time," a tweet from Operation Inherent Resolve's spokesperson said.The names of the two US service members will be withheld for 24 hours until next of kin is notified in accordance with DOD policy, according to CENTCOM's statement.The ISIS-affiliated Amaq agency said the attack in the northern city of Manbij was carried out by a suicide bomber with an explosive vest."An explosion in Manbij's busy market street, initial reports of casualties," spokesman of the Manbij military council Shervan Darwish wrote on Twitter.ISIS didn't provide any proof it was responsible for the attack.White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said President Donald Trump has been briefed on the situation and issued a statement on the attack later Wednesday."Our deepest sympathies and love go out to the families of the brave American heroes who were killed today in Syria. We also pray for the soldiers who were wounded in the attack. Our service members and their families have all sacrificed so much for our country," it said.Vice President Mike Pence has also been briefed, according to a tweet from his press secretary. However, Pence made no mention of the attack or the deaths of US service members while making remarks at the Global Chiefs of Mission conference at the US State Department Wednesday, claiming "The caliphate has crumbled, and ISIS has been defeated." Pence declares 'ISIS has been defeated' on the same day as deadly Syria attackA White House official said the administration had not publicly confirmed the deaths of US service members when Pence made his remarks even though the coalition against ISIS tweeted a message confirming there had been US deaths nearly an hour before his speech.Pence released his own statement after making those remarks saying, "We will never allow the remnants of ISIS to reestablish their evil and murderous caliphate -- not now, not ever. ""President Trump and I condemn the terrorist attack in Syria that claimed American lives and our hearts are with the loved ones of the fallen. We honor their memory and we will never forget their service and sacrifice," he said.However, he also indicated that the White House still intends to withdraw US troops from Syria."Thanks to the courage of our Armed Forces, we have crushed the ISIS caliphate and devastated its capabilities. As we begin to bring our troops home, the American people can be assured, for the sake of our soldiers, their families, and our nation, we will never allow the remnants of ISIS to reestablish their evil and murderous caliphate -- not now, not ever," the statement added.The attack comes less than a month after Trump announced that US troops would withdraw from Syria. In making his announcement, Trump declared in a video released on Twitter: "We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. We've taken back the land and now it's time for our troops to come back home."The US has about 2,000 troops in Syria, with no specific date for their withdrawal. Last week, the US beganwithdrawing some military ground equipmentfrom Syria, according to an administration official with direct knowledge of the operation.Following Wednesday's attack, two US officials told CNN that there are no current plans to reverse Trump's decision to begin withdrawing US troops from Syria. The President continues to believe that it's time for US troops to return home, the officials said. Specific withdrawal plans remain contingent on events on the ground, including the strength of ISIS but also security guarantees for the Kurds.Trump met with with several Republican Senators including Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Joni Ernst on Wednesday. The meeting was scheduled before Wednesday's attack. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was a harsh critic of Trump's plans to bring home US troops from Syria when the decision was announced earlier in December, said Wednesday that he is concerned that the President's statements about withdrawing from Syria have emboldened the enemy.Trump speaks with Erdogan after threatening to 'devastate' Turkey's economy "My concern, by the statements made by President Trump, is that you set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we're fighting. You make people we're trying to help wonder about us. And as they get bolder, the people we're trying to help are going to get more uncertain. I saw this in Iraq. And I'm now seeing it in Syria," Graham said during impromptu remarks at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Attorney General nominee William Barr."Every American wants our troops to come home, but I think all of us want to make sure that when they do come home, we're safe," he added. "So I would hope the President would look long at hard at where he's headed in Syria. I know people are frustrated, but we're never going to be safe here unless we're willing to help people over there who will stand up against this radical ideology."During his surprise visit to Iraq on December 26, Trump was warned by military commanders that -- despite his claims -- ISIS was not entirely defeated in Syria. People familiar with the President's reaction said the conversation was eye-opening for a leader who, days earlier, claimed the terror group was defeated "badly" in the country.The discussion occurred inside a tan tent at the al-Asad airbase west of Baghdad and included the US Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Silliman, Lieutenant General Paul LaCamera, national security adviser John Bolton, and the first lady Melania Trump, along with other officials.Trump was told that pockets of ISIS militants remained in the Euphrates River valley and that the US military had not yet eliminated all of their strongholds. Commanders told him the US had been successful in taking back other areas but that the job was not finished.The people familiar with the conversation described it as sobering, and said it broke through to Trump in a way his conversations with national security officials in Washington had not. Coming days after Trump's decision to withdraw troops from Syria, it centered partly on the remaining challenges of going after ISIS fighters in pockets of Syria.Mike Pompeo's long, strange tour through the MideastIn addition to the briefing from the commanders, Trump found the massive security apparatus on the trip surprising -- something his advisers told him was reflective of the remaining challenges against ISIS.Still, it remains unclear whether Wednesday's attack will impact Trump's decision to pull US forces from Syria as top administration officials continue to qualify the terms and timing of a pullout -- altering the President's December 19 assertion that forces would leave "now."After Trump declared that the US would pull troops from Syria and a US Defense official told CNN that planning was underway for a "full" and "rapid" withdrawal, national security adviser John Bolton began adding conditions that could indefinitely delay a troop departure and has refused to discuss timelines.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also avoided offering a specific timeline but insisted in a Cairo speech last week that under the Trump administration, the US is a stalwart presence in the Mideast. He told reporters separately that "there's no contradiction whatsoever" in the US policy on Syria, arguing that "this is a story made up by the media."At the same time, the top US diplomat has denied allies were confused about the US withdrawal from Syria. "I think everyone understands what the United States is doing," Pompeo said. "At least the senior leaders in their governments do."Yet on the ground and in diplomatic circles, Trump's decision landed with explosive effect.US allies in the region were blindsided. Two diplomatic sources say their countries were not consulted or informed and the news came as a total surprise.But discussions about a US withdrawal have continued this week. Trump and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan discussed "ongoing cooperation in Syria as US forces begin to withdraw" during a phone call Monday, just one day after Trump threatened to "devastate Turkey economically" if the NATO-allied country attacks Kurds in the region.

Enlarge this image The president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro makes a speech after casting his vote for municipal elections at a polling station in Caracas on Sunday. Anadolu Agency/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Anadolu Agency/Getty Images The president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro makes a speech after casting his vote for municipal elections at a polling station in Caracas on Sunday. Anadolu Agency/Getty Images The ruling party of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has won more than 90 percent of the country's mayoral races, after the opposition boycotted the election. Maduro said parties that sat out Sunday's vote will be barred from next year's presidential election.Maduro's United Socialist Party of Venezuela won more than 300 of the 335 mayoral offices."We have obtained a big victory!" Maduro said in a speech in the capital's Bolívar Plaza late Sunday. "A popular, democratic, free, sovereign victory of an independent country!""The imperialists have tried to set fire to Venezuela to take our riches," Maduro said."We've defeated the American imperialists with our votes, our ideas, truths, reason and popular will," he told the crowd, which chanted, "Go Home, Donald Trump." The Two-Way Venezuela Constituent Assembly Cracks Down On Media The Two-Way After Default, Venezuela's Fiscal Woes Spiral While Prosecutors Focus On Corruption About half of eligible voters cast ballots in Sunday's races.After casting his ballot, Maduro announced: "A party that has not participated today cannot participate anymore.""They will disappear from the political map," he said of the opposition parties that boycotted Sunday's vote.After the opposition unexpectedly lost most of the regional races in October, it cried foul. An alliance of parties have labeled Maduro a dictator and refused to participate in the mayoral races.As The Associated Press reports: "The elections played out as Venezuelans struggle with triple-digit inflation, shortages of food and medicine, and charges that Maduro's government has undermined democracy by imprisoning dissidents and usurping the powers of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. "... The struggles have caused the president's approval rating to plunge, although the opposition has been largely unable to capitalize on Maduro's unpopularity." In July, Maduro called a referendum on rewriting the country's constitution to give him near-dictatorial powers. The referendum easily passed despite an unofficial vote held earlier by the opposition that overwhelmingly rejected the changes. Washington responded to the vote with a new round of sanctions on Maduro, freezing his U.S. assets and prohibiting U.S. citizens from having any dealings with him.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York judge on Monday rescheduled Cardi B’s court hearing to Friday after she failed to appear in criminal court to face charges of assault in connection with a fight at a strip club but warned that she risked arrest if she did not show up again. Cardi B leaves the 109th Precinct in Queens, New York, U.S., October 1, 2018. REUTERS/Jeenah MoonThe 26-year-old performer, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, surrendered to police in October after being accused of involvement in the Aug. 15 incident at the Angels NYC strip club in the borough of Queens. Judge Scott Dunn told her lawyer “to convey to her that it’s not acceptable that she’s not here today,” after she failed to show up for her scheduled appearance. “You should inform her that if she doesn’t show up to the arraignment on December 7, that unless the circumstances change, then it’s very likely the court will issue a bench warrant for her arrest,” Dunn said to her lawyer, Jeff Kern. Cardi B, a two-time Grammy award nominee, has topped music charts in recent years with hits “Bodak Yellow” and “Girls Like You,” a collaboration with Maroon 5. On her verified Instagram profile under the “Story” section, Cardi B early Monday posted a video featuring her on aircraft and another showing a vibrant blue ocean. There was no indication where the photos were taken or when she may have been at the locations. Kern, who admitted that he rarely had direct communication with Cardi B but spoke with her through business managers, apologized to the judge and blamed her failure to appear in court on poor communication. “I can tell you my client knew of the date, but there was a previously standing commitment for today and tomorrow,” he said, assuring the judge that his client was not a flight risk. Kern said Cardi B had asked for an adjournment before Monday but the court had denied it. She was initially due in court on Oct. 29, but the court allowed her to reschedule. According to the New York Times, Cardi B accused one of two sisters who tend bar at the Angels NYC club of having an affair with her husband, Offset, who is part of the rap trio Migos. Citing police, the newspaper said Cardi B’s bodyguards and members of her entourage attacked the sisters with bottles and chairs. Cardi B’s agents and Joe Tacopina, an attorney representing the two bartenders, did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Monday. She has also made headlines for an ongoing feud with rapper Nicki Minaj, with whom she had a physical altercation during an event at this year’s New York Fashion Week. After a series of posts on Twitter and Instagram directed at each other, the two agreed on a cease-fire in October. Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Jonathan OatisOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Yesterday (Sept. 27), US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the professor of clinical psychology who accuses him of sexual assault, delivered nearly nine hours of emotional testimony. There were tears; there was rage; there were explanations of neuroscience and eulogies to beer.Throughout it all, America was watching. According to Nielsen ratings, nearly 20% of US households with televisions were watching the hearings at any given time between 10am and 6:45pm. That’s without factoring in the many more who watched it in public places, on their phones, via digital livestreams, or who caught up on the highlights online after work.For CNN, it was the channel’s biggest live video day since the Trump inauguration. For CBS News, it was its most-viewed livestream of the year. And at Fox, where opinion hosts have openly championed Kavanaugh’s nomination, viewers averaged 7.2 million during his appearance and 4.7 million during Ford’s.Yesterday’s hearings meant many different things to many different people—a referendum on #MeToo, a masterclass in the evils of “bro culture” (paywall), a worrying outcome for American men and boys. But one thing remained consistent across party lines: The Kavanaugh hearings were very, very important—even if the “why” has proven more contentious.

“You will not replace us.”This was one of the slogans chanted during a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on the night of 11 August 2017. Approximately 100 young white men – most of whom brandished tiki torches to intimidate watchers and light up their path – marched through the streets in scenes reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan rallies that once blighted the southern Unites States. By 10pm that evening, the group of white supremacists — now chanting “Jews will not replace us” along with the Nazi phrase “blood and soil” – had reached the University of Virginia campus, where counter-protesters awaited them with banners and slogans of their own. By the end of the weekend one of the counter-protestors would be killed, struck by a car.While some may have been under the impression that the rally was a random gathering of racists, it was actually the conjoining of several distinctive and dangerous groups of white supremacists, including Vanguard America, Identity Evropa, League of the South, and The Daily Stormer. One of the most prominent groups present that night were the Rise Above Movement (RAM) — a white supremacist group that refers to itself as the “premier MMA (mixed martial arts) club of the Alt-Right.”Based in southern California, RAM boasts over 50 members and fashions itself as a fight club. Its members train in various combat sports such as MMA and boxing, which they later apply during street fights and protests. The group has been spotted in Santa Monica, where RAM members tried to disrupt a Committee for Racial Justice meeting, and in San Bernardino, where they took part in an “anti-Sharia law” protest with signs such as “RAPEFUGEES stay away NOT WELCOME.” They engaged in physical violence during protests in Huntington Beach, Berkeley and Charlottesville.Under the leadership of boxer Robert Rundo and Benjamin Daley, whom ProPublica identified as the owner of a southern California tree-trimming business, RAM members infiltrate protests and disrupt proceedings by fighting with those opposing their ultra-nationalist ideology. They conceal their identities using skull masks and goggles, while wrapping their hands with tape in preparation for physical altercations. They then glorify their antics in propaganda videos posted on social media. RAM also appear to have their own gym, though the location remains a secret.RAM’s violent ideology coupled with its penchant for MMA and underground fight clubs distinguishes it from various other white supremacist groups in the United States. It has also helped RAM expand beyond the borders of the US, recruit new members, and network with a host of other neo-Nazi groups dabbling in MMA around the world. This is evident in the group’s recent ‘Europe Tour,’ which saw RAM visit several countries across the Atlantic to “bridge the gap between the two nationalist scenes”.What ensued on the tour was a large-scale networking event that emphasized the growing trend of fascism in mixed martial arts.On 23 April 2018, approximately 1,000 neo-Nazis and white supremacists descended on Ostritz, a small German town near the Polish border, to attend the Shield and Sword far-right festival. Held in honor of Adolf Hitler’s birthday, the two-day event featured far-right merchandise, heavy metal concerts, political speeches and an MMA tournament with competitors from some of of the most notorious white supremacist groups involved in the fight scene. Among those present were members of the Rise Above Movement.The MMA promotion responsible for the tournament goes by the name Kampf der Nibelungen. “To live is to fight,” Kampf der Nibelungen stated on its official website. “At all times it was fighters who defended their clan, their tribe, their homeland.”Over the past few years, Kampf der Nibelungen has held its events in secret, attracting small groups of neo-Nazis and soccer hooligans to their shows. However, the number of attendees at their events are reportedly swelling. While their inaugural show in 2013 brought in 150 guests, that figure had quadrupled by 2017. The Shield and Sword festival in April was the promotion’s first public appearance. Reports suggest that Rundo, one of the pivotal figures of RAM’s leadership, actually competed in the show.Members of the far-right hope to use MMA to pull in young people. “It’s a question of fashion,” Sword and Shield’s organiser Thorsten Heise told Vice News. “We’re seeing lots of young people in Europe not interested in drugs, they’re interested in fighting – in the ring, with rules. Especially in the nationalist scene, it’s the style – to be fit, to have a nice body. We love that, and the MMA fighters all love this also.”Ostritz was just one of many European cities that RAM members visited over the past few months. The group also met members of CasaPound, a fascist party in Italy. However, the highlight of their trip took place in Ukraine, where they met one of the leading figures of the far-right movement in sports.A week after the Sword and Shield festival, Rundo and Daley’s European tour arrived in Kiev, where they met with Denis Nikitin, the founder of a Russian neo-Nazi MMA, White Rex. The company sells clothing emblazoned with neo-Nazi symbols and racist slogans, including “Zero Tolerance”, “Angry Europeans”, and “White Rex Against Tolerance”.Nikitin, a former soccer hooligan turned entrepreneur, uses his business to spread his far-right agenda. In interviews, Nikitin speaks openly about his ideology as a white supremacist. “If we kill one immigrant every day, that’s 365 immigrants in a year,” he told the Guardian this year. “But tens of thousands more will come anyway. I realised we were fighting the consequence, but not the underlying reason. So now we fight for minds, not on the street, but on social media.”After spending several years in Germany, Nikitin returned to Russia, where he founded White Rex in 2008. He was one of the first people who combined the MMA subculture with far-right political ideologies, and has since established affiliates in countries such as Germany, England, France, and the United States, making him a pivotal figure on the far-right.Through violent sports such as MMA, Nikitin is able to target disenfranchised youth and promote an alternative lifestyle through nationalist fervour. White Rex uses models with blonde hair and blue eyes to promote their clothes – another strategy to help sell the brand to the young men inclined to join their cause.While White Rex operates under the guise of a clothing brand, Nikitin also uses his brand to organize MMA events. From 2011 to 2015, White Rex hosted multiple MMA shows, some of which featured several notable Russian fighters, including Bellator star Anastasia Yankova (Yankova has denied she shares White Rex’s ideology). White Rex also hired former Bellator middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko to train its fighters ahead of one of their shows in 2013. Though White Rex held its final event in 2015, the clothing brand continues to gain popularity.RAM’s meeting with Nikitin was several months in the making. They regularly posted links to White Rex’s shows and clothing on their social media accounts. More recently, however, RAM has begun selling White Rex clothing on their apparel website, Right Brand Clothing, which suggests a growing relationship between the two entities. It also means that White Rex – a clothing brand that promotes hate, Islamophobia, and nazi ideology – is now available in the United States.“RAM saw all these well organized groups in Europe and beyond that were outspoken,” Bryan Schatz, an investigative journalist for MotherJones who penned The Terrifying Rise of Alt-Right Fight Clubs, told the Guardian. “They had gyms. They had events that drew a lot of people. I think [RAM] found a lot of inspiration in how successful these groups were able to be so they wanted to import that model to the United States.”A quick search on the Right Brand Clothing website highlights several White Rex items of clothing, including a t-shirt that features Nazi symbols, such as the SS bolts. The description reads: “From the infamous European clothing brand White Rex this shirt is 100% cotton. Made in Europe. Wear this shirt with pride. Features sleeve patch. This is a European cut, we suggest buying a size up.”Naturally, White Rex is not the only far-right MMA brand that has caught RAM’s attention. Another group mentioned on RAM’s social media pages is Agogé, a white nationalist boxing gym founded by Generation Identity. According to the extreme right-wing group, the gym is a place for “patriots and identity in Lyon.”Generation Identity has hosted training camps in France for over six years. Promotional videos show dozens of young men and women working out wearing t-shirts bearing slogans such as “Defend Europe”. Following their success in France, the group has attempted to expand into Canada, particularly the francophone region of Quebec. It has also spurred similar movements from groups like Atalante Quebec, who opened up a secret fight club in Quebec for its members to train in. Despite the fact that a potentially violent “identity boxing club” had been established in Quebec, the local police department had no plans to intervene or monitor the secret club.On 24 May 2018, six members of Atalante Quebec – some wearing masks – barged into the Montreal offices of Vice Media, where they proceeded to insult reporters, throw leaflets and clown noses around, and intimidate those present in the office. They left before police arrived on scene. However, the group’s leader was arrested the following month and was charged with criminal harassment and intimidation. Their MMA fight club continues to operate despite their well-documented intimidation tactics.“The alt-right and the analogous identitarian movement are encouraging their members to get off the computer and network in real life,” Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, told the Guardian. “They want their members to take real world actions. Ultimately, they want to establish a white ethnostate by any means necessary. In the case of Atalante [Quebec], they probably view opening a martial arts school as a way to prepare for street clashes with anti-fascist activists or actions they believe are necessary to bring about a white ethnostate.”***Mixed martial arts provides a unique platform for white supremacists to promote their ideology and recruit new members. It allows far-right extremists to draw parallels between their training regimens and the appropriation of faux-medieval culture and history to suit their racist aims. Many such groups, including White Rex and RAM, view their MMA gyms as training grounds for upcoming race wars. They use Roman and Germanic mythology to romanticize their nationalist fervour, while brainwashing youth into “defending” their homeland against a common threat.“As far as I can tell, it is basically this idea that they need to come together – essentially like an army – to protect their race, which they see as being attacked.” Schatz explained.RAM is not the only group in the United States engaging in MMA and street fighting. A group of young, pro-Trump white men recently formed the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights (FOAK) and announced that it would serve as the “tactical defensive arm” of the Proud Boys, a far-right men’s organization started by Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes. Kyle Chapman, the founder of FOAK, revealed that his group plans to “protect and defend our right-wing brethren when the police and government fail to do so.” Other similar groups have since sprouted in Italy, the Czech Republic, and Poland.It is likely that white-nationalist fight gyms will continue to sprout across North America and Europe for the foreseeable future. Their ability to not only operate in the open, but to also establish a worldwide network of violent, well-trained white supremacists, emphasizes the extent of the problems facing Western society. Topics MMA Race and sports US sports The far right

Ash is still blowing through the park surrounding Brazil’s National Museum, which continues to tally its losses. According to the deputy director at the museum, a 200-year-old Rio de Janeiro institution, the fire that burned down much of the building two weeks ago may have consumed 90 percent of the collection.That’s thousands, maybe millions, of objects — incomprehensible numbers.It’s always easier to think in smaller terms, specific examples. The museum preserved documentation of indigenous languages for which there are no longer any living native speakers, as The New York Times has reported. Every one of those records apparently went up in smoke, taking with it a culture, a civilization, the story of a life, a chapter of us.Because that’s what museums like the National Museum ultimately do. They piece together the narrative of who we are, where we come from, where we belong — in the universe, on this planet, as nations, communities, individuals.ImageChildren looking at the oldest human fossil found in Brazil, called Luzia, during a visit to the National Museum before it burned.CreditAlexandre Macieira/Riotur, via Associated PressFor generation after generation, the National Museum, a repository of science, art and history, has been where parents passed down to their children what it means to be human and, more specifically, what it means to be Brazilian. A former colonial slave traders’ home that was later turned into a royal palace, the building itself was the site of key moments in the country’s history, part of the national narrative, and therefore a place of deep symbolism and pride.It’s no wonder that the fire became an instant metaphor for the country’s decline. While it was still burning, crowds gathered at the museum gates. Afterward, a group of students issued a call for any photographs, videos, even selfies taken with the collection and in the exhibition spaces, to create a digital archive, a kind of virtual bulwark against forgetfulness.“The National Museum was part of the childhood of each of us,” explained Luana Santos, one of the students organizing the effort. Thousands of images have already been uploaded.But that very effort reiterates how grounded the real, physical museum has been in the lives of Cariocas, as Rio residents are called. Never a big tourist attraction, the museum always drew mostly locals. Its neighborhood, São Cristovão, lies on the working-class northern fringes of Rio, close to the favela of Mangueira, with its famous samba school. It is miles from the posh beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon, to the south, and even farther from neighborhoods like Barra da Tijuca and Recreio, where Rio’s wealthy residents congregate and a sprawl of gated communities and shopping malls conjure up Houston or Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.That’s not where the city’s working classes gather. On weekends many retreat to the romantic 19th century park by the French landscape architect Auguste Glaziou, where the museum is situated, a free public space where families can picnic and lovers can stroll. A visit to the museum is often a ritual for parents, grandparents and children, a chance for the kids to discover dinosaur bones and South America’s oldest human remains and for adults to reminisce about the first time they saw a meteorite.But during recent years, residents have watched government officials funnel billions toward the Olympics, the World Cup and projects like Santiago Calatrava’s Museum of Tomorrow, ignoring public services and bedrock institutions like the National Museum, whose cash-starved curators, even before the fire, became so desperate that they took to crowdsourcing funds to repair tattered displays.ImageThe opening day for the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro in 2015.CreditMario Tama/Getty ImagesWriting in the newspaper El País, Washington Fajardo, an architect and planner from Rio, described Brazil as “a happy prisoner of modernity.” His point: The country’s political and business leaders, grasping and reckless, have fixated on projecting Brazil as a global front-runner and neglected the country’s cultural patrimony.There may be an element of racial politics to this. Told in school to think of themselves as a blend of indigenous, European and African cultures, many Brazilians have difficulty embracing their mixed origins. The National Museum was the leading custodian of this identity, the advertisement and repository for its history and truth.“All of science will suffer from the loss of its collection, but in Brazil the most profound suffering may well be the loss of history and heritage,” said Ellen Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.“Institutions like ours are ultimately about where we as people, as societies, fit into the larger scheme of things — in terms of past and future, in terms of each other,” she said. “And what people take away from the museum is often not just a lot of information but something deeply spiritual, emotional.”By chance, this past weekend two visitors from Rio, Adilson Cardoso Silveira, 45, and Wilson Rodrigues, Jr., 39, were in New York, snapping selfies in front of the Museum of Natural History’s Willamette Meteorite.The meteorite crashed to Earth thousands of years ago in what is today Oregon. Long before Europeans arrived, it became an object of worship for the Clackamas, who are now members of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community. They named it Tomanowos. Representatives of the Grand Ronde still trek to the museum each year for a ceremony with Tomanowos.ImageQuinta da Boa Vista park, which surrounds the National Museum.CreditLianne Milton for The New York TimesAt the mention of the Rio fire, Mr. Cardoso put his hand on his heart. He and Mr. Rodrigues nodded when asked if they ever visited the National Museum. “Since I was a boy,” Mr. Cardoso said.It happens that among the only artifacts known to have survived the fire last week is Brazil’s version of Tomanowos: a meteorite nicknamed Bendegó.Bendegó made it through the fire of earth’s entry, and now through another conflagration. I pointed this out and Mr. Rodrigues smiled.As if unconsciously, he gently stroked Tomanowos.ImageThe meteorite Bendengó, one of the exhibits in the museum, sat among ashes after the fire.CreditLeo Correa/Associated Press

So far, no serious injuries have been reported. Most of the human toll came in the form of grief and tears as employees, researchers and academics flocked to the scene in Rio de Janeiro. The museum had recently celebrated its bicentennial.Many of them cried as they watched flames consume the building. Marco Aurelio Caldas, who worked at the museum for nine years, was overcome by the loss. "This is 200 years of work of a scientific institution -- the most important one in Latin America," he told Agencia Brasil. "Everything is finished. Our work, our life was all in there."The palatial National Museum building used to be the home of a Portuguese royal family. Almost exactly 200 years ago, it was converted into a museum. Since then, the National Museum has become Brazil's oldest historical institution and an internationally prominent research center. "Two hundred years of work, research and knowledge were lost," President Temer said after the fire. "It's a sad day for all Brazilians."The museum housed 20 million artifacts in areas such as biological anthropology, archeology, ethnology, geology, paleontology and zoology,according to its website.One of the museum's most famous artifacts is known as "Luzia," the skull and bones of a 25-year-old woman who died more than 11,000 years ago. They are the oldest remains ever discovered in Brazil, the museum's website says.The skull of "Luzia" was believed to be more than 11,000 years old.The largest meteorite ever found in Brazil is also housed in the museum. It weighs 5.36 tons and was found in 1784. The meteorite housed by Brazil's National Museum.Other rare exhibits include thousands of works from the pre-Colombian era, such as mummified Andean skeletons. The museum housed an impressive collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, including mummies, sarcophagi, statues and stone carvings. Related: Egypt's treasures to receive a new $1 billion homeFlames engulf the 200-year-old National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro.Minister of Culture Sergio Sa Leitao said the country "is in mourning." "I have also asked for a complete evaluation of the fire preparedness conditions of every other federal museum in the country," he said, "in order to verify the steps that need to be taken to avoid another tragedy."

Brazilian President Michel Temer says the government is seeking funding from companies and banks to help rebuild the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro after it was destroyed by fire.Education Minister Rossieli Soares said international help was also being sought and talks with the UN's cultural body, Unesco, were under way.Museum officials say almost 90% of the collection has been destroyed.Staff have blamed the fire on years of funding cuts.The museum housed one of the largest anthropology and natural history collections in the Americas. It included the 12,000-year-old remains of a woman known as "Luzia". In pictures: Museum destroyed in blaze From a meteorite to a 12,000-year-old skeleton On Monday, President Temer's office said he had held talks with officials from major Brazilian banks and businesses to examine ways to reconstruct the museum "as soon as possible".Addressing reporters outside the ruined building, Mr Soares said the federal government had set aside an initial 15m reais (£2.8m; $3.6m) to rebuild the structure and restore its collection. An investigation has been launched but Culture Minister Sergio Leitao told the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper that the most likely causes were an electrical fault or a homemade paper hot-air balloon landing on the roof.The fire started on Sunday evening, after the building - a 19th Century former royal palace - closed for the day.It is not yet clear if the museum was insured.The city's fire chief, Roberto Robadey, said nearby hydrants were dry when emergency services arrived. He said crews had to get water from a nearby lake and from tanker trucks."Yesterday was one of the saddest days of my career," he said.On Monday, fire crews were sifting through the charred wreckage, occasionally emerging with an artefact or a painting they had managed to rescue.Riot police fired tear gas outside the park housing the museum on Monday as a small, irate crowd tried to enter.Many demonstrators were angry at the budget cuts that they say led to the fire. The protesters were later allowed to surround the museum's perimeter in a symbolic "embrace." Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, a deputy director at the museum, expressed "immense anger", and accused Brazilian authorities of a "lack of attention"."We fought years ago, in different governments, to obtain resources to adequately preserve everything that was destroyed today," he said.One issue appears to be the lack of a sprinkler system. Mr Duarte told Globo TV that a $5.3m (£4.1m) modernisation plan agreed in June would have included modern fire prevention equipment, but only after October's elections.Roberto Leher, rector of the Rio de Janeiro federal university which administers the museum, said the community was "very mobilised, and very indignant"."We all knew the building was vulnerable," he said.The flames tore through hundreds of rooms containing some 20 million artefacts. They ranged from fossils and the reconstructed skeleton of a dinosaur to Roman frescoes and pre-Columbian Brazilian objects.The jewel in the crown for many visitors was "Luzia" - the oldest human remains ever discovered in Latin America."Luzia is a priceless loss for everyone interested in civilisation," museum director Paulo Knauss told AFP news agency.Using her skull, experts had produced a digital image of her face, which was used as the basis for a sculpture that was also gutted by the fire.Another popular exhibit was the Bendegó meteorite, weighing more than five tonnes and discovered in Minas Gerais region in the 18th Century.Deputy director Cristiana Serejo said it had survived along with part of the zoological collection, the library and some ceramics.

Apple will announce first quarter earnings tomorrow for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30. If Apple’s guidance from its last earnings report is to be believed, then this will likely be the company’s best quarter for revenue ever. The company said last November it expected to generate between $84 billion and $87 billion this quarter, which, even at the low end, would be much more than the $78.4 billion earned in its first quarter of 2017—Apple’s previous record.Even if the end of 2017 turns out to be phenomenal for earnings, recent reports say that 2018 may be rocky for Apple. The company’s $1,000 flagship phone, the iPhone X, which was released in November, may not be as popular as analysts had expected. The Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 30 (paywall) that tepid demand will force Apple to cut iPhone X production in half in the next quarter. Customers are instead buying older, less expensive iPhone models, finding that the new features on the X aren’t worth the premium. (Quartz is inclined to agree.)The outlook sent Apple’s stock price plummeting this week:While demand for the X may be lower than expected, even if Apple misses its estimates by 10% (highly unlikely), it would still bring in over $75 billion, making one of its best quarters of all time.Apple struggled to grow revenue in 2016 and into 2017, as critics and customers alike noticed Apple was stuck in a rut of releasing iterative, derivative products. The iPhone X was supposed to kick off what analysts had been calling a “supercycle” of new products and revenue gains, but it’s unclear if that’s happened.We’ll have to wait for the earnings call to find out just how popular the X was, but here’s the thing: Whether the supercycle has come and gone or hasn’t actually happened yet (as some might argue), it doesn’t really matter that much. Apple will continue to sell products that resonate with millions of people each quarter, whether they’re massively innovative, or just nice updates.Apple has also set itself up to make iPhone sales not matter as much. The iPhone, Apple’s cash cow is accounting for less and less of Apple’s total revenue, and its other products, including the Mac and accessories like the Apple Watch and AirPods, are helping fill the gap.Regardless of whether it’s selling $1,000 iPhone Xs or $700 iPhone 7 Pluses, Apple’s Services business is what’s really pushing revenue. That’s the games, apps, movies, music, subscription services, cloud storage, and support services that customers are buying after they’ve purchased their iPhones, and that they continue to buy more and more of with each passing quarter. Apple’s rock-solid ecosystem, that we cannot seem to escape even when we want to, means that it’s become much less important for the company to knock a new product out of the park.Still, analysts are expecting Apple to have sold more iPhones this holiday period than ever before. So even if they’re not all buying the most expensive option, they’re still buying very expensive telephones, and Apple will—shockingly—be in very fine shape, even if its stock plummets on whatever numbers it reports, and whatever guidance it offers for its second quarter. Some are already bracing for guidance that Apple won’t sell the 60 million iPhones analysts expect it to produce in the coming quarter.One other sign of resilience worth keeping tabs on will be Apple’s geographic revenue diversity. Apple’s future health will depend more greatly on cracking developing markets like India and China, where it’s been marketing lower-cost devices for the last few years. Look to see whether revenue beyond the Americas and Europe are continuing to trend upwards.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Anger smoldered in Brazil on Monday after a fire destroyed the National Museum, a cherished historical repository that lacked a sprinkler system and which had suffered years of financial neglect, making its destruction a “tragedy foretold.” Outside the entrance to the elegant park housing the 200-year-old former Imperial Palace, police in riot gear shot tear gas into a small, angry crowd that tried to enter, live TV images showed. Later, police granted access to the site’s perimeter, which protesters surrounded in a symbolic “embrace.” The rumbling tensions reflect anger over the destruction on Sunday of the much-loved yet dilapidated museum, which suffered from declining federal funding. It stirred emotions in Brazil, whose angry electorate is reeling from a frail economy, widespread graft and rising violence ahead of an unpredictable presidential election in October. “Our community is very mobilized, and very indignant,” said Roberto Leher, rector of the Rio de Janeiro federal university, which administers the museum. “We all knew the building was vulnerable.” Brazil’s culture minister Sergio Leitao told the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper the blaze was likely caused by either an electrical short-circuit or a homemade paper hot-air balloon that may have landed on the roof. Launching such balloons is a long-held tradition in Brazil and they routinely cause fires. Both possibilities were being considered, Culture Ministry spokeswoman Roberta de Oliveira Ribeiro said in an email, but the cause would not be known until an investigation was completed. The Rio de Janeiro federal university did not immediately respond to a question on whether the museum was insured.The museum’s pastel-yellow facade remained standing after the blaze, but a peek inside its giant windows revealed a roofless interior of blackened hallways and charred beams. Every so often, firemen emerged with a pot or a painting they had managed to rescue. The museum’s vice director, Luiz Duarte, told Globo TV the institution had been neglected by successive federal governments. He said a 21.6 million-real ($5.23 million) financing plan with the state-run development bank BNDES announced in June included, ironically, a plan to install modern fire protection equipment. The Rio fire department’s commander, Roberto Robadey, said the hydrants outside the building were dry when firefighters arrived, forcing them to turn to a nearby lake and tanker trucks for water. “Yesterday was one of the saddest days of my career,” he said. A demonstrator runs as municipal policeman controls his colleague during a protest in front of the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil September 3, 2018. REUTERS/Pilar OlivaresThe museum is not the first to burn down in Brazil, where public money for cultural projects has been drying up after a deep recession. In 2015, for example, a blaze destroyed the prestigious Museum of the Portuguese Language in Sao Paulo. In 2016, President Michel Temer was forced to reinstate the Culture Ministry after an outcry from some of the country’s top artists over his policy to fold it into the Education Ministry to save money. On Monday, his office said he had met with representatives from major Brazilian companies and banks to look into ways to help rebuild the museum “as soon as possible.” Education Minister Rossieli Soares told reporters outside the burned-out building on Monday that the federal government would spend an initial 15 million reais, in two separate installments, to restore the structure and rebuild its collection. He added that Brazil would seek international help, and was already in discussions with UNESCO. The museum’s decline did not happen overnight, said Renato Rodriguez Cabral, a teacher in the geology and paleontology department. “This was a tragedy foretold,” Cabral said, hugging distraught students and coworkers who poured into the site on Monday. “Successive governments would not provide funds, they would not invest in infrastructure.” Between 2013 and 2017, the National Museum in Rio’s federal funding fell about a third, to 643,567 reais, according to official budget data. The funding cuts were particularly acute this year, with the museum receiving just 98,115 reais between January and August. Late last year,, after a termite attack shuttered a room hosting the bones of the Maxakalisaurus dinosaur, the National Museum was forced to turn to a crowdfunding site to seek funds for reopening the exhibit. It raised nearly 60,000 reais, almost double its goal. The National Museum’s collection ranged from archeological finds to historical memorabilia. Slideshow (27 Images)The museum, which is tied to the Rio de Janeiro federal university and the education ministry, was founded in 1818 and housed several landmark collections, including Egyptian artifacts and the oldest human fossil found in Brazil. The destruction of the building, where emperors once lived, was an “incalculable loss for Brazil,” Temer said in a statement. His office did not respond to requests for comment on widespread allegations of neglect. Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Additional reporting by Marcela Ayres; Editing by Brad Brooks, James Dalgleish and Jonathan OatisOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Investigators are awaiting permission to enter the charred remains of Brazil’s National Museum to try to determine the cause of Sunday’s devastating fire and to survey the damage it has wrought on one of the largest scientific and historical collections in Latin America.Officials fear the losses at the 200-year-old institution could be catastrophic, with one suggesting that up to 90% of the museum’s artefacts may have been destroyed.Engineers have been conducting tests on the structure to make sure it will not collapse, while the authorities have said that the museum’s internal walls and parts of the roof are weak.Federal police are investigating the fire as the museum is part of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. On Monday, Brazil’s culture minister, Sérgio Leitão, told the Estado de S Paulo newspaper that the blaze was probably caused by either an electrical short circuit or a homemade, paper hot-air balloon that may have landed on the roof.Protesters, politicians and senior museum staff have blamed the blaze on years of government neglect and underfunding, saying that austerity cuts and spending on high-profile projects such as the World Cup and the Olympic Games had left the museum vulnerable.“The money spent on each one of those stadiums, a quarter of that would have been enough to make this museum safe and resplendent,” said Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, the museum’s deputy director, in an interview aired on Brazilian television in front of the still-smouldering ruins. He said staff were so aware of the fire hazard that he was in the habit of unplugging everything in his office at night because of the risk.Firefighters have also said that initial attempts to tackle the fire were delayed as two hydrants near the museum were dry.Roberto Leher, rector of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said it was well known that the building was vulnerable to fire and in need of extensive repairs.Although the institution had recently secured nearly $5m (£3.9m) for a planned renovation – including an upgrade of the fire-prevention system – the money had not yet been paid out.“Look at the irony. The money is now there, but we ran out of time,” the museum’s director, Alexander Kellner, told reporters at the scene.The museum’s budget had fallen from about $130,000 in 2013 to around $84,000 last year, according to Marcio Martins, a spokesman for the museum. This year was on track to include an increase from last year.In a sign of how strapped the museum was, when a termite infestation last year forced the closure of the room that housed a 12 metre-long dinosaur skeleton, officials turned to crowdfunding to raise the money to reopen the room.On Monday, officials promised $2.4m to shore up the building and promised to rebuild the museum.President Michel Temer said private and public banks – as well as the mining giant Vale and the state-run oil company Petrobras – had agreed to help rebuild the museum and reconstitute its collections. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, offered in a tweet to send experts to help rebuild the museum.“Those saying that the museum will be rebuilt are not telling the truth,” said Luiz Philippe de Orléans e Bragança, an heir to Brazil’s last emperor. “The building could be rebuilt, but the collection will never again be rebuilt. Two hundred years, workers, researchers, professors that dedicated in body and soul (to the museum) … the work of their life burned due to the negligence of the Brazilian state.”The museum, whose main building was once home to the royal family, had extensive paleontological, anthropological and biological specimens. It also contained a skull called Luzia that was among the oldest fossils ever found in the Americas. It held an Egyptian mummy and the largest meteorite ever discovered in Brazil – one of the few objects that officials could confirm had survived. Some parts of the collection were held at other sites and thus spared.As anger over fire grew, several thousand people demonstrated in central Rio on Monday night, chanting and cheering speakers who attacked government for letting it fall into such neglect. The crowd gathered in the Cinelândia area then marched to Rio’s state legislature, where a huge banner calling for he release of imprisoned former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was laid out on its steps.Many were students who had used the museum, like Clarice Cruzeiro, 18, who has just finished high school and said the museum’s location in a leafy park in Rio’s gritty “North Zone”, far from upscale beach neighbourhoods, had made it a popular destination for people from lower income families like her.“It was the most accessible museum for poor people. It was the first museum that many people went to,” she said, holding up one half of a banner that demanded the 20-year spending cap introduced in 2016 by Temer be revoked.Some said the museum fire showed how Brazilians failed to value their own culture and history, prioritising study of Portuguese colonisers over their country’s original indigenous inhabitants. “We are taught that we are inferior,” said Pedro Monteiro, 21, a social sciences student at Rio’s Pontifical Catholic University. “Our eyes are focussed abroad,” said Camila Arielyda, 20, a law student from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.Wallace Goulart, 24, had worked in the museum’s biology department since 2012 and said money had always been tight but budgets had shrunk even further after Temer took power in 2016. “Brazil does not value its history,” he said. Makko Jaibairas, 39, an indigenous activist lamented the loss of the museum’s indigenous collection. “Unfortunately we live in a country where people do not value their history, their roots,” he said.Brazil is in the middle of a national election campaign and some candidates on the left have seized on the fire as an example of the disastrous effects of budget cuts implemented by Temer’s government. The budget data showed that cuts to the museum’s budget began under the previous leftwing government.Associated Press contributed to this report Topics Brazil Rio de Janeiro Americas Museums news

The news refugee Bahraini footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi was detained by the Thai authorities on a “red notice” by Interpol has rocked the sports world. A “red notice” is a request to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition. Human Rights Watch has documented “red notice” misuse by China and other countries for politically motivated and wrongful arrests. In the latest turn to the story, Thailand’s immigration chief now says Bahrain requested the player’s arrest in advance of his arrival in Thailand, which suggests he was under surveillance even in Australia. Although the notice was lifted by Interpol, Al-Araibi is still in a Thai detention centre facing imminent deportation to Bahrain, where he risks imprisonment and torture.Fifa, the powerful global football federation, has clear rules on player rights, human rights and human rights defenders, and has the leverage to prevent the refugee football player’s forced return to Bahrain. That means Al-Araibi’s case is a true test of Fifa’s new human rights policy: will Fifa stand with a football player and defend him against rich and powerful human rights abusers like the Bahraini government?In 2012, Al-Araibi came forward to say Bahraini authorities had arrested and tortured him in detention, allegedly for his brother’s political activities. In 2014, Al-Araibi was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison for allegedly vandalising a police station – charges he denies, pointing out that at the time of the supposed crime, he was playing in a televised football match for his local club Alshabab in Bahrain.“They blindfolded me,” Al-Araibi told The New York Times, describing the torture he endured at the hands of Bahraini officials in 2012. “They held me really tight, and one started to beat my legs really hard, saying: ‘You will not play soccer again. We will destroy your future.’”Al-Araibi escaped to Australia in 2014, where he was granted refugee status in 2017, and he now plays football for semi-professional club Pascoe Vale FC in Melbourne.But while on a holiday in Thailand with his wife last month, he was stopped at Bangkok airport and he now finds himself in a tug of war between Australia and Bahrain. In the middle of this battle is Thailand. Al-Araibi’s fate lies in their hands, and Fifa can and should influence their decision – but has not responded to Human Rights Watch’s request for a statement on his case.Al-Araibi has been very critical of the current president of the Asian Football Confederation, Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, especially during his candidacy for Fifa presidency in 2016, calling for investigations into the jailing and torture of Bahraini athletes who peacefully protested his family’s rule in the 2011 Arab Spring demonstrations. Sheikh Salman is also a Fifa vice president. Article 3 of the Fifa statutes, the organisation’s constitution, says, “Fifa is committed to respecting all internationally recognised human rights and shall strive to promote the protection of these rights.” The organisation’s Human Rights Policy further says, “Fifa is committed to helping protect the rights of football players and will continually evaluate existing regulations and processes and, if necessary, consider additional measures….”In view of what has been happening with other peaceful political Gulf critics, Fifa needs to make an urgent intervention to help Al-Araibi avoid a forced return to Bahrain where he risks persecution.The outcome of a similar case should have Fifa deeply concerned. According to a report by Amnesty International and UNHCR, Ali Haroon, the last Bahraini dissident repatriated from Thailand, was “severely beaten, shackled and put into a wheelchair before being forcibly placed on a flight to Bahrain….Subsequent reports by Bahraini human rights organisations and media outlets indicated that Haroon had sustained such severe injuries prior to arriving in Bahrain he was transferred to a hospital upon his arrival.”This case bears striking similarities to Al-Araibi’s. Like Al-Araibi, Haroon was a peaceful critic of the Bahraini government, and was extradited by the Thai authorities on the basis of an Interpol “red notice” arrest warrant. Moreover, there is every reason to fear the Thai courts and immigration authorities will not protect Al-Araibi’s rights. Thailand has long failed to respect the legally binding principle of “non-refoulement,” where states are prohibited from returning an individual to a country to face torture or other serious human rights violations.Human Rights Watch has documented how, in recent years, Thai authorities have forcibly returned numerous refugees and asylum seekers, including sending 100 Uighurs – an ethnically Turkic, predominantly Muslim minority – to China, where they face persecution and internment camps. The end game for Hakeem Al-Araibi should not be a forced return to the country he has fled. Fifa needs to find its voice to defend this player before it is too late.• Minky Worden is director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch and oversees the organisation’s work on human rights and sports Topics Fifa Australian immigration and asylum Football politics Australia sport Hakeem al-Araibi comment

The wife of Meng Hongwei, the Interpol president held in China since September, has sought asylum in France for herself and her twin children.Grace Meng and the seven-year-olds live in Lyon, the international police agency's headquarters. Meng Hongwei disappeared during a visit to China.In October the Chinese authorities said Mr Meng was being investigated over suspected bribe-taking.His wife and children are under police protection, having received threats.Quoted by France Inter radio on Friday, she said, "I fear they will kidnap me." "I've received strange phone calls. Even my car was damaged. Two Chinese - a man and woman - followed me to the hotel," she said. In media interviews she has refused to show her face, fearing for her safety.On the day her husband went missing, she said he had sent her a social media message telling her to "wait for my call", before sending a knife emoji, signifying danger.Since his disappearance on 25 September no details have emerged about his prison conditions or the charges against him. The 65-year-old's job as Interpol president was largely ceremonial and did not require him to return to China often. He was also one of six powerful vice-ministers in China's public security ministry and had 40 years of experience in China's criminal justice system. He previously worked under security czar Zhou Yongkang, one of the most powerful figures to be taken down in President Xi's anti-corruption campaign that has targeted more than a million officials. Detained Interpol chief 'took bribes' Where film stars and police chiefs can simply vanish Meng Hongwei was elected Interpol president in November 2016, the first Chinese person to take up the post, and was scheduled to serve until 2020.China's new National Supervision Commission - an anti-corruption agency - said Mr Meng was being investigated for "violation of laws".But unlike in other high-profile detentions, it did not mention a charge of "violating party rules". China has not presented any evidence to justify the allegation against Mr Meng.China said Mr Meng had written a resignation letter and Interpol Secretary-General Jürgen Stock acknowledged that he had received it on 7 October. "There was no reason for me to (suspect) that anything was forced or wrong," he said.Quoted by the Associated Press news agency, Mr Stock said Interpol's rules did not allow him to investigate Mr Meng's disappearance. Interpol accepted the resignation letter without further comment.Russia loses Interpol presidency voteIn November Interpol elected South Korean Kim Jong-yang as its new president, rejecting a Russian candidate who had been tipped to succeed Mr Meng.The International Criminal Police Organisation was founded in 1923 in Vienna, and its original members included Germany, France and China.The UK and US did not join until later.In 1956, it became officially known as Interpol and has since grown into a network of 194 member countries.Its primary aim is to promote co-operation and share intelligence between police forces.The general secretariat oversees its day-to-day work. It focuses on crimes such as terrorism, drug-trafficking, people-smuggling, child pornography and money-laundering.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A merit-based immigration proposal being put together by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner could lead to an increase in U.S. visas for highly skilled workers, sources familiar with the effort said on Wednesday. FILE PHOTO: A Ghanian woman poses while holding her family's passports with a U.S. visa in Accra, Ghana February 1, 2019. Reuters/Francis Kokoroko/File PhotoKushner is expected to present the comprehensive plan next week to President Donald Trump, who will decide whether to adopt it as his official position or send it back for changes, the sources said. The plan does not propose ways to address young people who came to the United States illegally as children who were protected by former President Barack Obama in the 2014 program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), or those people who have Temporary Protected Status, the sources said. Democrats, whose support the White House would need to advance any kind of immigration legislation through Congress, have insisted that the DACA recipients be protected. Kushner has held about 50 listening sessions with conservative groups on immigration, a senior administration official said. He has been working with White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and policy adviser Stephen Miller on the plan and the sources said there has been some intense behind-the-scenes jockeying about the plan. At a Time magazine forum in New York on Tuesday, Kushner said he was working well with Miller, an immigration hawk, on the topic. The two men are both long-time Trump advisers. “Stephen and I haven’t had any fights,” he said with a smile. That drew skepticism from immigration advocate Marshall Fitz of the Emerson Collective, who gave Kushner credit for advancing criminal justice reform but said immigration was a dramatically different issue that Miller was dominating at the White House. “It’s impossible to see how Kushner could navigate an issue this freighted with history and central to the president’s re-election strategy in a way that would actually move the ball forward,” Fitz said. As a White House candidate in 2016 and throughout his presidency, Trump has advocated a hard-line policy on immigration, pushing for a wall to be built on the U.S.-Mexico border and using bruising rhetoric to describe people who have fled Central American countries to enter the United States. Republicans have largely supported his immigration proposals, but the latest White House plan aims to bring them together on a broader basis. Some in the U.S. business community have asked that the number of highly skilled visas be raised to attract more employees from abroad for specialized jobs amid a booming U.S. economy. Trump himself has talked of the need to bring in more skilled workers. The immigration plan would either leave the number of highly skilled visas each year at the same level or raise it slightly, the sources said. The overall goal is to reshape the visa program into a more merit-based system, a key Trump goal. Officials working on the plan have been reviewing the systems used by Canada and Australia as possible models for the Trump effort. The group has been working on a guest-worker program as part of the proposal to address the U.S. agriculture community’s need for seasonal labor while not hurting American workers, but nothing has been finalized, the sources said. Trump has sought to court farmers in key battleground states to boost his chances of re-election in 2020. The proposal will include recommendations for modernizing ports of entry along the U.S. border to ensure safe trade while preventing illegal activity. It also aims to decrease the number of immigrants able to enter the United States based on their family ties, the sources said. Trump has already taken steps to address those immigrants who overstay their visas. Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law, is also a main architect of a Middle East peace proposal that the president is expected to unveil this summer. His objective on the immigration plan at the very least is to have a document that represents the president’s immigration policy and provide something that Republicans can rally around. Reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa ShumakerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - A Russian call for a five-hour truce on Tuesday failed to halt one of the most devastating campaigns of the Syrian war, where residents said government warplanes resumed striking the eastern Ghouta region after a brief lull. Diplomatic sources meanwhile said the chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, opened an investigation into attacks in eastern Ghouta to determine whether banned munitions were used. Political leaders in France, the United States and Britain said this month they would back targeted military action against Damascus if there were proof chemical weapons had been used by forces under President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s ally. Moscow and Damascus blamed rebels for the collapse of the truce, saying fighters had shelled a safe route intended for civilians to leave the enclave. The insurgents denied such shelling, and a senior U.S. general accused Moscow acting as “both arsonist and firefighter” by failing to rein in Assad. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would press on with a plan to stage similar daily pauses in the fighting, allowing aid to be delivered to eastern Ghouta through what Russia describes as a humanitarian corridor. But the United Nations said it was proving impossible to aid civilians or evacuate wounded, and said all sides must instead abide by a 30-day truce sought by the U.N. Security Council. “We have reports this morning there is continuous fighting in eastern Ghouta,” U.N. humanitarian spokesman Jens Laerke said. “Clearly the situation on the ground is not such that convoys can go in or medical evacuations can go out.” Hundreds of people have died during 10 days of government bombardment of the eastern Ghouta, an area of towns and farms on the outskirts of Damascus. The assault has been among the most devastating air campaigns of a war now entering its eighth year. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was ready to access eastern Ghouta to deliver life-saving aid, but the proposed five-hour pause was too short. Without mentioning Russia, the author of the proposal, ICRC Middle East director Robert Mardini said humanitarian corridors had to be well-planned and agreed to by all warring sides, while people should be allowed to leave of their own free will. With its Ghouta offensive, the Syrian government is drawing on the military methods it has used to crush its opponents in other parts of Syria, including eastern Aleppo in late 2016. Intensifying bombardment of the besieged area has been coupled with probing ground assaults to test rebel defenses. With no sign of decisive international pressure to stop the attack, eastern Ghouta seems likely to meet the same fate as other areas won back by the government, where humanitarian corridors eventually became escape routes for defeated rebels. “A concrete humanitarian corridor has been set up that will be used to deliver humanitarian aid, and, in the other direction, a medical evacuation can take place and all civilians who want to leave can,” Lavrov told a joint news conference in Moscow after meeting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. But the local branch of the opposition Syrian Interim Government’s Ministry of Health dismissed Russia’s truce call as a ploy to circumvent the U.N. month-long ceasefire resolution. The call in effect offered residents a choice between “death under bombardment” or a forced displacement, it said, calling on the United Nations to send in relief aid immediately. U.S. Army General Joseph Votel accused Russia of playing a destabilizing role in Syria as “both arsonist and firefighter”, saying Moscow had failed to rein in its Syrian ally. “I think either Russia has to admit that it is not capable, or it doesn’t want to play a role in ending the Syrian conflict. I think their role is incredibly destabilizing at this point.” Russia’s military said rebels in eastern Ghouta started new offensives with intense artillery and gun fire after midday, Interfax news agency reported citing a Russian general. Smoke rises from the besieged Eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria, February 27, 2018. REUTERS/ Bassam KhabiehResidents in several towns in the eastern Ghouta described a brief pause in fighting, but said bombardment swiftly resumed. In Hammouriyeh town a man who identified himself as Mahmoud said helicopters and planes were in the sky and conducting strikes. Siraj Mahmoud, a spokesman for the Civil Defence rescue service, which is funded by Western governments and operates in rebel areas, said artillery and air strikes had hit the region. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said helicopters and warplanes had struck four towns and artillery shelling killed one person. A U.N. Security Council resolution passed on Saturday called for a 30-day ceasefire across the entire country, but did not specify when it should start. It excludes some militant groups which are among the rebels in eastern Ghouta. That has meant the ceasefire has not been observed in practice. U.N. spokesman Laerke declined to comment on the Russian proposal for a five-hour truce, but called instead on all sides to obey the full 30-day ceasefire. “It is a question life and death ... we need a 30-day cessation of hostilities in Syria as the Security Council demands,” Laerke, of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, told a Geneva briefing. A rebel spokesman said people in eastern Ghouta did not want to leave the area despite the bombardment, because they feared arrest, torture or conscription by the government. Russia said it would guarantee the safety of any civilians who left. Eastern Ghouta, where the United Nations says around 400,000 people live, is a major target for Assad, whose forces have clawed back numerous areas with military backing from Russia and Iran. Rebels based in eastern Ghouta have intensified shelling of government-held Damascus. A medical official in the capital said on Monday 36 people had been killed in four days. Syrian state media reported eight people hurt by rebel shelling on Tuesday. Damascus and Moscow say the campaign in eastern Ghouta is needed to halt such shelling. The multi-sided Syrian war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven half of the pre-war population of 23 million from their homes. Fighting has escalated on several fronts this year, with the collapse of Islamic State giving rise to conflict between other Syrian and foreign parties. Slideshow (8 Images)As Assad has pressed the offensive against eastern Ghouta, Turkey has launched an incursion against Kurdish fighters in the northwestern Afrin region. Tensions have also flared between Iran and Israel, alarmed by Tehran’s influence in Syria. Syrian air defenses shot down an Israeli F-16 earlier this month as it returned from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria. Diplomatic sources said the OPCW would examine attacks including one on Sunday which health authorities said killed a child and caused symptoms consistent with chlorine gas exposure. Opposition-held areas in Eastern Ghouta were the scene of chemical attacks in 2013 in which hundreds of civilians were killed in the deadliest use of chemical weapons in decades. Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Tom Perry, Ellen Francis, Dahlia Nehme, Angus McDowall, Suleiman al-Khalidi, Anthony Deutsch, Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart, Editing by Peter Graff and William MacleanOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Anti-aircraft fire downed an Israeli warplane returning from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria on Saturday in the most serious confrontations yet between Israel and Iranian-backed forces based across the border. The F-16, one of at least eight Israeli planes despatched in response to what Israel said was an Iranian drone’s incursion into its airspace earlier in the day, was hit by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile and crashed in northern Israel, an Israeli official told Reuters. Both pilots ejected and were injured, one critically. Israel then launched a second and more intensive air raid, hitting what it said were 12 Iranian and Syrian targets in Syria, including Syrian air defense systems. Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said the downing of the plane marked the “start of a new strategic phase” that would limit Israel’s ability to enter Syrian airspace. Iran’s involvement in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad in a nearly 7-year-old civil war - including the deployment of Iran-backed forces near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights - has alarmed Israel, which has said it would counter any threat. But Israel and Syria signaled they were not seeking wider conflict, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rushed to military headquarters in Tel Aviv and the pro-Assad alliance pledged a strong response to any Israeli “terrorist action”. “Israel seeks peace but we will continue to defend ourselves steadfastly against any attack against us or any attempt by Iran to establish itself against us in Syria,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement. Russia, whose forces began intervening on behalf of Assad in 2015, expressed its concern and urged both sides to exercise restraint and avoid escalation. Netanyahu said he had spoken by telephone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that they agreed Israel-Russia military coordination in regard to Syria would continue. Putin told Netanyahu in the phone call that there was a need to avoid any steps that would lead to a new confrontation in the region, Interfax news agency reported. A Western diplomat in the region said: “My impression is that it seems to be contained at this point. I don’t think anybody wants to escalate further.” A Pentagon spokesman said the United States fully supported Israel’s right to defend itself, and a State Department spokeswoman said the United States is “deeply concerned” about the “escalation of violence over Israel’s border.” Related CoverageU.S. 'strongly supports' Israel's right to defend itself: State DepartmentIsrael seeks peace but will defend itself against Iran: NetanyahuU.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is closely watching the “alarming” military escalation throughout Syria and calls on all sides to exercise restraint and work for an immediate and unconditional de-escalation of violence, a U.N. spokesman said. Saturday’s chain of events began at 4:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) when an Israeli Apache helicopter shot down an Iranian drone over the northern town of Beit Shean, the Israeli military said. The drone had been sighted taking off from a base in Syria, and was intercepted after it crossed into Israeli territory, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said. Israeli planes then struck an Iranian installation in Syria from which, the Israeli military said, the unmanned aircraft had been operated. The Israeli military released grainy black and white footage of what it said was the drone’s control vehicle in Syria being destroyed. The F-16 crashed on its return from the mission, coming down in an empty field near Harduf, east of Haifa. “We heard a big explosion and then sirens. We didn’t know what was happening, we heard helicopters and planes,” said Yosi Sherer, 51, who was staying at a hostel in Beit Shean. Flights at Tel Aviv’s international airport were briefly halted. The area was quiet by mid-afternoon. Conricus said missile remnants were found near the crash site. “We don’t know yet if it’s an SA-5 or SA-17, but it’s a Syrian anti-aircraft missile,” he said. Israel then launched a second bombing raid in Syria. The pro-Assad military alliance said Israel had attacked a drone base in central Syria but denied any of its drones had entered Israeli airspace. Iran rejected the Israeli version of events as “ridiculous”. Israeli security forces examine the remains of an F-16 Israeli war plane near the Israeli village of Harduf, Israel February 10, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen ZvulunDavid Ivry, a former Israeli Air Force chief, told Reuters he believed it was the first time an Israeli F-16 was brought down since Israel began using the jets in the 1980s. Israel has long maintained air superiority in the region, mounting air strikes in Syria on a regular basis, targeting suspected weapons shipments to Hezbollah. Hezbollah said in a statement: “Today’s developments mean the old equations have categorically ended.” Iranian and Iran-backed Shi’ite forces, including Hezbollah, have deployed widely in Syria in support of Assad. Iran’s military chief warned Israel last October against breaching Syrian airspace and territory. Netanyahu, visiting the Golan on Tuesday, peered across the border into Syria and in public remarks warned Israel’s enemies not to test its resolve. An official in the pro-Assad alliance said after the downing of the F-16 that a “message” had been sent to Israel. But he added: “I do not believe matters will develop to a regional war.” The Israeli military said it did not seek escalation, calling its action a defensive response to an Iranian act of aggression. The U.S. administration has backed Israel’s hawkish stance on Iran and declared containing Tehran’s influence an objective of its Syria policy. On a visit to Israel last month, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence called Iran the world’s “leading state sponsor of terror”. Pentagon spokesman Adrian Rankine-Galloway said the United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself. “We share the concerns of many throughout the region that Iran’s destabilizing activities ... threaten international peace and security, and we seek greater international resolve in countering Iran’s malign activities,” Rankine-Galloway said. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to visit the region in the coming week to discuss Syria and other issues, and is scheduled to visit Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and other countries. Netanyahu said he and Tillerson discussed the flare-up on Saturday. Tensions also have spiked across the frontier between Israel and Lebanon over Israeli plans for a border wall, and Lebanese plans to exploit an offshore energy block partly located in disputed waters. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and has occupied it since, annexing the territory in 1981 in a move not recognized internationally. Slideshow (3 Images)There has been an uneasy standoff since a ceasefire that followed a war in 1973, with United Nations observer forces manning a buffer zone between the two armies. In November, Israel said it had shot down a Syrian reconnaissance drone over the demilitarized zone, and on Feb. 8 shots were fired from Syrian territory at an Israeli drone, hitting a house in Majdal Shams, in Israeli-occupied Golan. Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Stephen Farrell and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Lisa Barrington, Tom Perry and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara, Jack Stubbs in Moscow, Yeganeh Torbati in Washington, and Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Robin Pomeroy, Dale Hudson and Bill TrottOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A retired spy and his daughter are found slumped on a park bench in Salisbury. Someone tried to kill them. The poison is novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent. Six months later Theresa May says the would-be assassins are officers with Russian military intelligence. They travelled to the UK as “Alexander Petrov” and “Ruslan Boshirov”.Not true, says Moscow. Last month the two men appeared on RT, the Kremlin’s external propaganda channel. They denied having anything to do with the bungled attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Yes, they visited Salisbury twice. But they came in March to see the city’s wonderful cathedral and turned back the first time because of heavy ‘slush’ …The investigative website Bellingcat has revealed the pair’s real identities. “Boshirov” is Anatoliy Chepiga, a GRU colonel. “Petrov”, we learned this week, is Alexander Mishkin, a trained GRU medical doctor. Both are decorated heroes of Russia. As for the slush, Mishkin comes from a remote snow-covered village in the frozen Arkhangelsk region.Which version to believe? States have always lied about their activities. So, it must be said, have (some) western politicians. But we are now living in an age where malign individuals and authoritarian nations such as Russia are able to spray around lies on a global scale, using the firehose power of Facebook and Twitter.You don’t have to believe the two Russians. Vladimir Putin’s aim isn’t to persuade the world community that the pair are hapless tourists – though this line works to some degree at home. Putin’s ultimate goal is to confuse. As RT’s boss, Margarita Simonyan, once put it, there is no such thing as truth, only “narrative”.As the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, I watched as the Russian government perfected these techniques for a domestic audience. Over the past decade, the Kremlin has rolled out the same methods abroad. It is part of a wider attempt to reshape the world to Russia’s advantage. Other leaders are using the same authoritarian handbook.We see rightwing populists trying to create a sovereign version of “reality”. Think of Donald Trump and his claim – easily disproven by photos – that his inauguration crowds were “bigger than Obama’s”. Or Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s loyal aide, who told NBC that the president would not answer questions under oath posed by Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor investigating collusion. “Truth is not truth,” Giuliani said.Putin, Trump and other unscrupulous people have declared war on critical thinking. For Lenin, truth was subordinate to class struggle. Putin has taken this relativist idea and weaponised it. Russian state TV channels spew out endless conspiracy theories, which are amplified by professional trolls and shared online. The web – a once empowering force – has become a playground for disinformation and malign messaging.And, as the historian Timothy Snyder argues, post-truth is pre-fascism. Without a basic consensus about facts, science, law and parliamentary politics get corroded. Our democracy becomes degraded. Climate change? A hoax! Collusion? Fake news! Russian hacking of the US presidential election? It could have been anybody!Trump’s account of the world is false and self-serving. And successful. His Republican supporters live in their own separate knowledge universe, fed and affirmed by Fox News and conservative talk radio. They believe the president is a victim of a deep-state plot. There is divide in thinking – an epistemological barrier that creates hostile tribes, a them and an us.All of this presents an enormous challenge for journalism. How should reporters respond to this assault on truth? How do we avoid what you might call “versionland” – where rival “versions” are accorded the same status, even if one of them is wrong? How do we hold a civilised conversation?One possible answer, I think, is good method. As a foreign correspondent, I believed in seeing for myself: travelling to the frontline of a war, or driving to the scene of a natural disaster. We need to talk to all sides. If the facts change, so should our reporting. Fixed ideas are unhelpful. The truth – so best as we can establish it – does exist. Where possible we should uncover it.The work of journalists is under attack as never before. Our best response is to develop a spirit of solidarity. The Guardian is one of a number of influential media organisations that have begun to work collaboratively. We still want to break exclusive stories. But interrogating complex issues is sometimes best done as part of a global team.I’ve been lucky to have been involved in many groundbreaking investigations. They include the leak of state department cables; Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass US-UK surveillance, for which the Guardian jointly won a Pulitzer prize; and the Panama and Paradise Papers. Plus stories on Trump’s Russian connections and the links between the Russian ambassador in London and Arron Banks.We have worked on many of these projects with talented reporters from around the world. Nearly 400 journalists cooperated on the Panama Papers. We swapped information – we called this “radical sharing” – and pooled discoveries and tips. Remarkably we managed to keep our year-long investigation secret: no mean feat given the gossipy proclivities of most hacks, especially after a pint.The investigation revealed a bitter truth: that the secret offshore industry is not a minor part of our economic system. Rather, it is the system. The rich and multinational corporations exited from tax a long time ago, leaving the rest of us to pick up the slack. This sense of fundamental economic unfairness explains in part why millions voted for Trump – and Brexit.At a time when politics seems to be failing, the Guardian is more determined than ever to hold power to account. Paradoxically, this feels to me like a golden age for journalism. The answer to onslaughts from Trump and co is to carry on – to tell true stories, compellingly and well. Most of all we need our readers. Please support our work in dark times, and help light us the way.Luke Harding is the author of Collusion: How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win the White House, published by Guardian Faber and available through the Guardian bookshop. Topics Donald Trump Inside the Guardian Vladimir Putin Russia Digital media Internet features