原标题：印度载108人飞机降落时滑出跑道，飞机滑轮掉进排水道印度一架飞机降落时滑出跑道，飞机滑轮掉进排水道 ... 据《印度时报》5日报道，当天凌晨，印度快运航空（Air India Express）一架客机在科钦（Kochi）机场降落时滑出跑道，当时飞机上载有102名乘客和6名机组人员，所幸机上人员均无碍

A 25-year-old accused of opening fire at a Tennessee church last weekend allegedly had a note in his car referencing some sort of retaliation for the Charleston church attack carried out by white supremacist Dylann Roof two years ago, a law enforcement official said. Police said on Sept. 24, 25-year-old Emanuel Samson shot and killed a 39-year-old woman in the parking lot of the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch. Police said Samson then went into the main doors of the church sanctuary, shooting and wounding six people, who are all in their 60s or 80s. Police said Samson, who is black, had allegedly been to this church -- which has racially diverse parishioners -- one to two years ago. Police have not released a motive, according to The Associated Press. The U.S. Attorney's Office says a federal civil rights investigation has been opened. Samson has not entered a plea. He is set to appear in court Oct. 6.Dylann Roof sentenced to death, 1st to get death penalty for federal hate crimesSuspect in deadly church shooting described as 'deep Christian believer'Church usher, 22, heralded as 'hero' after deadly Nashville shooting In January, Roof was sentenced to death for the June 2015 killing of nine black churchgoers during a Bible study in Charleston -- the first time a death penalty verdict was rendered in a federal hate crimes case. Prosecutors said Roof's racist hatred built up for years before the killings.

It was a scene of horror: a bench, two unconscious individuals, a furtive poison. The attempted murder in early March of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, caused headlines around the world. Skripal was a former officer with Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. He arrived in the UK in 2010 as part of a spy swap. Yes, he had given secrets to MI6. But why try to kill him eight years on? And who applied novichok to his front door in Salisbury?Over the past nine months, lurid details of an audacious Moscow murder plot have emerged. Immediately, Theresa May blamed Vladimir Putin and expelled 23 Russian diplomats who were suspected of spying. The Kremlin denied involvement and said it was the victim of “hostile action”.Behind the scenes, officers led by Scotland Yard sifted through thousands of hours of CCTV footage. By May, they had made a provisional breakthrough. They identified two Russian men – Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov – who visited Salisbury during the weekend, not once but twice. The pair flew in from Moscow to Gatwick airport with genuine Russian passports and visas. The suspicion, however, was that they were undercover operatives travelling under assumed names. Hitmen, in fact, sent to the UK on a one-off mission.By summer, detectives had gathered sufficient evidence to consider charging the two men with murder. Police had found the weapon: a fake Nina Ricci perfume bottle converted into a dispenser. It was specially made to apply the poison, gunked out on to the handle of Skripal’s door. The discovery was made under tragic circumstances. A local woman, Dawn Sturgess, inadvertently sprayed novichok on her wrists. She died in hospital. Her partner, Charlie Rowley, had apparently found the bottle discarded in a skip. He fell ill but survived.Meanwhile, police tracked down the budget hotel in Bow, east London, where Boshirov and Petrov stayed. They found minute traces of novichok, a deadly nerve agent developed during the late Soviet era in state labs. The plot was reminiscent of the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko, who was killed with radioactive green tea.In September, the prime minister laid out the evidence – or some of it – to MPs. There were compelling images of the killers. They were recorded arriving at Salisbury train station, walking in the direction of Skripal’s home and returning afterwards – visibly relieved, with Petrov grinning.Back in Moscow, the pair appeared on Russian state TV. Petrov said friends had suggested they visit Salisbury – a “wonderful town”. Boshirov added that they were attracted by the city’s cathedral and spire. Their performance was awkwardly ridiculous and led to widespread online mockery.Bellingcat, the investigative website, uncovered further compelling facts. In late September, it established Boshirov’s true identity. His real name was Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga. He was a serving officer with the GRU, Skripal’s old service. He had received Russia’s highest state award in 2014, possibly for his role in Russia’s take over of Crimea.Soon afterwards, Bellingcat named Petrov as Alexander Mishkin. He was also a career GRU spy – a medical doctor who trained at a military academy in St Petersburg. He received a new identify and passport some time after joining the GRU and moving to Moscow. At Mishkin’s home in Loyga, a muddy village in northern Russia, his proud grandmother kept a photograph of her grandson, reporters were told. It showed Mishkin receiving the same outstanding award as Chepiga: hero of Russia.The person bestowing the award and shaking hands with Mishkin was well known in Russia and familiar to anyone who watched the evening news – Putin. In November, the Kremlin announced sad news concerning the GRU boss, Igor Korobov. He had died, the Kremlin said, after a “long and grave illness”. Topics Sergei Skripal 2018: what happened next? Russia Vladimir Putin features

The former USA international Alexi Lalas launched a tirade against Bruce’s Arena’s team on Sunday, calling the players “underperforming, tattooed millionaires.”After a string of mediocre results, the US could face a playoff against Syria or Australia to qualify for next year’s World Cup – if they make it that far in the first place. Lalas, a pundit for Fox Sports, made his comments during coverage of the Seattle Sounders-LA Galaxy on Sunday night. “It’s dark days, indeed, but this is a time for leaders to step up,” he said. “And so to the supposed leaders, I will say this: Tim Howard. Tim, the Belgium game ended three years ago. We need you to save the ball now. Geoff Cameron. Clean it up, or let’s get someone who will.“Clint Dempsey. Yeah, you’re a national team legend; now we need you to be a national team leader. Michael Bradley. The US does not need you to be zen, the US needs you to play better. Jozy Altidore. Is this really as good as it gets? Because it’s still not good enough.”Lalas, who won 96 caps for the US, is usually a firm backer of the national team but he did not spare the younger members of the team. That included the US’s great young hope, Christian Pulisic. “And, oh, by the way, to all the guys that I didn’t mention, it’s because you don’t even warrant a mention,” he added. “That includes you too, Wonder Boy.”When Jürgen Klinsmann was fired as USA coach last year, many believed the appointment of Arena would reverse the team’s fortunes. But they managed just one point from their last two matches and are fourth in their group, one place off the automatic qualifying spots for Russia 2018.“So, what are you guys going to do?” Lalas said. “Are you going to continue to be a bunch of soft, underperforming, tattooed millionaires? You are a soccer generation that has been given everything; you are a soccer generation who’s on the verge of squandering everything.”The US still have their fate in their own hands: if they win their remaining fixtures against Panama and Trinidad & Tobago they will qualify. Topics USA Bruce Arena World Cup 2018 US sports Christian Pulisic news

China has demanded India immediately remove troops from the border amid an increasingly tense stand-off in the remote frontier region beside the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.The Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday said India had been building up troops and repairing roads along its side of the border next to the mountainous Indian state of Sikkim. The stand-off ratchets up tension between the neighbours, who share a 2,175 mile (3,500km) frontier, large parts of which are disputed. “It has already been more than a month since the incident and India is still not only illegally remaining on Chinese territory, it is also repairing roads in the rear, stocking up supplies, massing a large number of armed personnel,” said a foreign ministry statement from Beijing. “This is certainly not for peace.” Early in June, according to the Chinese interpretation of events, Indian guards crossed into China’s Donglang region and obstructed work on a road on the plateau.The two sides’ troops then confronted each other close to a valley controlled by China that separates India from its close ally, Bhutan, and gives China access to the so-called Chicken’s Neck, a thin strip of land connecting India and its remote north-eastern regions. India has said it warned China that construction of the road near their common border would have serious security implications. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, is to visit China early in September for a summit of leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Indian officials say about 300 soldiers from either side are facing each other about 150 meters (yards) apart on the plateau. They have told Reuters that both sides’ diplomats have quietly engaged to try to keep the stand-off from escalating, and that India’s ambassador to Beijing is leading the effort to find a way for both sides to back down without loss of face. Chinese state media have warned India of a fate worse than the defeat it suffered in a brief border war in 1962. China’s military has held live fire drills close to the disputed area, it said last month. On Friday the official China Daily said in an editorial that China was not in the mood for a fight, noting how the stand-off had been “unusually restrained”. “However, if good manners do not work, in the end it may be necessary to rethink our approach. Sometimes a head-on blow may work better than a thousand pleas in waking up a dreamer,” the English-language paper added. Topics China India Asia Pacific South and Central Asia news

The US president, Donald Trump, has again questioned the impartiality of the deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, who is planning to retire from the bureau in the months ahead after being buffeted by attacks over alleged anti-Trump bias in the agency.In a tweet on Saturday, the president wrote: “How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?”McCabe spent hours behind closed doors on Capitol Hill this week being grilled by lawmakers on two separate committees as part of a new investigation of the FBI and its 2016 inquiry into Clinton’s email practices when she was secretary of state. His role supervising the email investigation has come under renewed scrutiny.McCabe’s wife, Jill, received $700,000 in donations from the political action committee of the Virginia governor, Terry McAuliffe, and the Virginia Democratic Party for a state Senate race in 2015. The money was donated before McCabe was promoted to deputy director and assumed a supervisory role in the Clinton email investigation. McAuliffe is a longtime supporter of Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton.McCabe became acting FBI director last May after Trump fired Comey, who was overseeing the bureau’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump maintains there was no collusion between his campaign and the Russian government, and has blasted the investigation as a “witch hunt”.From his South Florida home, where he is spending the holidays, Trump also tweeted that McCabe “is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!”.McCabe plans to retire in about 90 days, when he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits, The Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the situation. Trump and his Republican allies have made it clear they want McCabe out of the FBI. But McCabe is a civil service employee who cannot be fired without clear evidence of wrongdoing.McCabe was among the candidates Trump interviewed for the FBI director’s job after he dismissed Comey. He also has been a focus of Trump’s ire for some time.Trump originally tweeted about McCabe’s wife’s campaign in July, inaccurately describing the campaign donation as coming from Clinton: “Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!”In a second tweet that month, the president asked “why didn’t A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation”, referring to the attorney general, Jeff Sessions.The FBI declined to comment on reports about retirement by McCabe, who was summoned to Capitol Hill this week and grilled for hours by two congressional committees.Republicans charge that an anti-Trump bias exists in the bureau’s ranks, citing the campaign donations to McCabe’s wife and, more recently, the release of hundreds of text messages between FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. Strzok and Page used words like “idiot” and “loathsome human” to describe Trump during the campaign.Strzok was removed from the team of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Russia investigation, over the summer after the text messages surfaced.Democrats accuse the GOP of diversionary tactics and say their criticism could embolden Trump to take steps to fire Mueller. Trump said earlier this week that he’s not considering firing Mueller. Topics Donald Trump FBI US politics news

If you are thinking of risking your life to make the perilous journey from Syria to Europe, you could do better than the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos. According to Google Maps, it only has an overall score of 2.1 stars out of 5.As you can see, that average rating is based on 37 reviews from people who have been to the camp. Kawesa EL Ashiz gave it three stars, writing, “The camp is not bad but still not the best amongst any others.” But BASL AHMOD gave it only one star. “Inadequate place for refugees. There is no water, no showers, no enough food,” he wrote, originally in Arabic and translated by Google.“Very bad,” reads another one-star review. One of the few five-star reviews seems to be either misguided or ironic: “10/10 reccomend [sic] staying at this beautiful hotel,” writes Franki Bonanno. So the real average could be even lower than 2.1.There are some good things going for Moria, though. For one thing, it appears to be open 24 hours, which is really convenient. Google Maps also suggests that the Moria refugee camp gets less crowded at night.One strange thing is that Google seems to think this is a “business,” even though Maps correctly identifies it as a “refugee camp” in the description. Google even asks whether I want to “claim this business” as my own. No thanks, not with those kind of reviews!If I did own this “business,” I would try to get rid of “the stench of human waste” and put an end to the numerous riots. Also overcrowding, that would definitely bring the rating down—the camp was set up for 1,500 people but now has more than 3,000. Oh, and I might let people leave.Lastly, I would probably ask that Google Maps not treat refugee camps the same way it does fancy New York City cocktail bars.

苹果公司今天在新总部 Apple Park 的游客中心举行盛大的开幕仪式，并欢迎广大公众参观他们的新园区，这个标志性建筑项目从开始设计筹备到最近竣工，时间已经过去了 10 年 ... 上周，苹果就在园区对外发布了一份通知，并向库珀蒂诺的居民们发出了邀请函，让我们第一次了解到即将到来的这个盛大开业典礼。今天，不少苹果新闻或其他科技媒体网站的记者也来到了 Apple Park，与第一批客人一起排着队，准备亲自去看一看

Casualties from cluster munitions, internationally outlawed weapons that kill indiscriminately, more than doubled in 2016 compared with the previous year, a disarmament group that monitors their use reported on Thursday.The group, the Cluster Munition Coalition, said nearly 1,000 people had been killed or injured by the bombs, which are banned by international treaty. Most of the increase was attributed to the six-and-a-half-year-old war in Syria, where use of cluster munitions by the military was documented early in the conflict and appeared to have escalated last year with Russia’s support.Dozens of other deaths and injuries last year were attributed to the Saudi-led bombing of Yemen and lethal remnants buried in Laos from the intensive American bombing of that country during the Vietnam War era, the group said.The findings were contained in the Cluster Munition Monitor, the group’s annual report on adherence to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the treaty that prohibits them. The treaty entered into force on Aug. 1, 2010. To date, 119 countries have signed the treaty or agreed to its provisions.A number of major weapons-producing nations, however, have not signed or agreed to the treaty, including the United States, Russia, China and Ukraine. Nearly all countries in the Middle East also have not signed or agreed to it.In total, the Cluster Munition Coalition said, 971 people were killed or maimed by the bombs in 2016, of whom 860 were in Syria, 51 in Laos and 38 in Yemen. The group said civilians accounted for 98 percent of the casualties.Other countries where casualties from cluster munitions were reported included Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Serbia, South Sudan and Vietnam.Launched from the ground or dropped from the air, cluster munitions consist of containers that open and disperse submunitions, or bomblets, that fan out and explode, killing or maiming without distinction between civilian and military targets. Some of the bomblets can fail to detonate as designed, essentially making them de facto land mines that can explode long after a conflict has ended. Many of the victims are unsuspecting children.“Cluster munitions pose significant dangers to civilians for two principal reasons: their impact at the time of use and their deadly legacy,” the Cluster Munition Coalition said in the preface to its 2017 report.Sensitive to the stigma of cluster munitions, the United States has severely restricted exports of the weapon and sought to improve technology to minimize collateral damage. Under a 2009 law, only cluster munitions with a failure rate of 1 percent or less can be exported, and they can be used only against “clearly defined military targets,” not “where civilians are known to be present.”In another significant sign of the coercive effect of the treaty, the last remaining manufacturer of cluster munitions in the United States, Textron Systems, announced last August that it was stopping production of the weapons.

It’s been around two weeks since the second wave of #MeToo was set off in India, but it feels a lot longer.As a man who’s been part of the entertainment industry for a decade, it’s been heartbreaking to see the volume of stories—brutal, raw, angry—from incredibly brave women coming out, one after another.It’s been difficult grappling with how broken our system is to allow the abuse of power at this level. And it’s been devastating to know that there are so many people you have worked with, cared about, looked up to and loved, among the survivors…and sickeningly, among the perpetrators, too.It’s hard to imagine the toll these couple of weeks would have taken on the scores of women speaking up and reliving their pain so publicly, and on the hundreds and thousands of more who have had to privately live with their own #MeToo stories. Not because they aren’t brave enough to speak up, but because we have, for far too long, normalised our patriarchal culture and desensitised both sexes to this.We live in a country where feminism is the last rung of a ladder that we’ve never bothered climbing.On the face of it, our seemingly progressive industry has been rallying against this very culture through the years, in various pieces of feminist-identifying content that have won us awards from across the world, and given hope to so many about the new India that’s rising from our collective conscience.But we live in a country where feminism is the last rung of a ladder that we’ve never bothered climbing because we haven’t even been taught that first step of gender sensitisation.And so, my most shameful realisation at this time has been that systemic abuses of power are never far removed from us. In fact, they are probably taking place right under our noses, the whole time.I’ll be the first to admit that this is a difficult industry to break into, and a hard one to be a part of.It’s well known that the old guard with the money bets mostly on your name, and not your talent, because of the inherent public relations value that comes with being part of a “legacy.” You’ve always heard that even if you do manage to get your foot through the door, there are innumerable people in power you have to be on the right side of, to make your way to the top, to be that person in power others whisper about.And if you are a woman, you are always warned about certain people, certain institutions, certain workplaces, because if you can’t fight them, perhaps you don’t join them at all.As a man, I’ve heard many such stories of women being harassed in the name of work and fame, and each time I would come to know of a horrific incident or a horrifying perpetrator, I’d distance myself from that world. I’ve personally let go of multiple, well-paying opportunities over the years to avoid being complicit to a repulsive environment. And I know many men like me who’ve slept in peace knowing that our moral compasses are functioning like well-oiled machines, and we have nothing on our respective conscience.Over the last two weeks, that illusion has shattered to pieces. Because the truth is that by ignoring the culture, we’ve been complicit. By thinking of our own interests, we’ve been complicit. By not raising our voices, we’ve been complicit.Because the culture isn’t an external being, the culture is us.Why do we shove the misbehaviour of “stars” on our sets under the carpet?This culture doesn’t exist in a bubble. It builds its foundation through the cracks in our ethics. When we ignore sexist comments, “boys talk,” and slut shaming in our auditions, on our sets, and at our parties, we give rise to the culture. When we ignore misogynistic jokes on our WhatsApp work groups, we help foster it. When we allow, for so long, for dance numbers featuring women to be called “item” numbers, or when we think stalking in our movies is funny because it’s “just a film,” or when we don’t object to 50+ men romancing 20-somethings in our movies because they are “stars,” we actively support the culture.The fact is that when we don’t intervene in the problematic behaviour of the men we work with, we are complicit in the patriarchy we believe we have no part to play in. Why are we okay with most Bollywood studios not having proper sexual harassment guidelines in place? Why do we shove the misbehaviour of “stars” on our sets under the carpet? When we let the men we work with get away with every level of unkindness to women, where does it stop? When they get away with words, does that empower them to believe they can get away with their actions? When we try to live and exist in our own delusion, are we shielding ourselves or fooling ourselves?For way too long, Bollywood, and the media industry at large has excused the terrible behaviour of people in power because we can’t stop putting people who have “made it” on pedestals. We overlook misconduct, verbal abuse, unkindness, and even misogyny/bigotry because these people are able to make us money.A huge reason why it’s taken so long for these stories to come out is because, as a society, we have equated terrible behaviour to being an eccentricity of power and talent, and hence given the “genius” of these powerful men more importance than the suffering of real human beings.We’ve let this status quo thrive all around us, because, of course, it was convenient for us.And when you devalue human life and humanity itself for capitalistic gains, a culture of silence will always prevail over punishment and justice. It’s terrifying that so many women have been afraid to speak up for so long about abuse, or many times, are convinced not to, because men in power are considered omnipotent, and women know they won’t be believed. Even with our industry’s perceived evolution and wokeness, we’ve let this status quo thrive all around us, because, of course, it was convenient for us.If we truly want things to get better in the industry, we need to introspect about how we are complicit in contributing to this culture of misogyny. If we need safer working environments, we need to hold ourselves accountable to this change, and work at ensuring them, not just in our professional lives but also, and more importantly, in our personal lives.We need to call out sexism, misconduct, and unkindness and we certainly need to stop glamorising power as a prowess that can help one get away with anything. For once and for all, we also need to change our priorities from wanting to be important people to really just aiming to be decent ones. To everyone.As men, from the industry and otherwise, the most important thing we need to do is listen to women. We need to stand and fight by their sides. And we need to speak up when they are wronged because #MeToo is not about women versus men, it is about dismantling the patriarchy that has been unforgiving to the women who were told that they are weak for centuries, till the point that they had to stop fighting it…until now.We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

Enlarge this image Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has entered the West Wing — aides working in the White House. Mueller's team is charged with looking into whether anyone on Donald Trump's campaign worked with the Russians who attacked the 2016 election. Andrew Harnik/AP hide caption toggle caption Andrew Harnik/AP Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has entered the West Wing — aides working in the White House. Mueller's team is charged with looking into whether anyone on Donald Trump's campaign worked with the Russians who attacked the 2016 election. Andrew Harnik/AP Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has entered the West Wing.Mueller's team is charged with looking into whether anyone on President Trump's campaign worked with the Russians who attacked the 2016 election, so it was inevitable that investigators would want to talk with aides now working in the White House.Some, like top adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, communications director Hope Hicks and policy adviser Stephen Miller, were key players in the campaign as well.Their outside lawyers did not respond to requests for comment, but Ty Cobb, the outside attorney brought in to help the White House, spoke with NPR about the probe."The interviews ideally will be completed by Thanksgiving or shortly thereafter," he said. National Security As White House Makes Nice With Mueller, GOP Allies Sharpen Knives For Special Counsel Cobb declined to get into the details of whom or even how many aides will ultimately face questioning."I sort of have a blood oath with Mueller that I don't get into that," he said. "It complicates his job. And it sort of defeats the confidence that people here have in me to protect them. So I can't talk about the 'who, what and where' stuff."Cobb was asked whether this was simply a first round of interviews, focusing on lower level staff, and he insisted no, this would be all of them."It's pretty well set," he said. "I mean it's conceivable they may have isolated people back on, you know, on issues that they fail to ask them about," he added.In fact, Cobb said, one aide had already been called back for a second conversation that lasted about 20 minutes. Politics 'My Story Has Never Changed,' Attorney General Jeff Sessions Tells House Committee Mueller's team has reportedly already spoken to former administration officials Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus. Members of the White House counsel's staff are on Mueller's list as well.In addition to campaign activities like the June 2016 Trump tower meeting with a Russian delegation attended by the president's son and top aides, Mueller's investigation is also understood to be looking into the drafting of a misleading statement about that meeting, the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.The many issues at stake in the sprawling imbroglio don't make life any easier for White House aides who must pay their lawyers and deal with investigators at the same time they try to do their day jobs."If everything were good and nobody had done anything, or met with the Russians, or talked about meetings with the Russians or emailed about meetings with the Russians — if everything were good, it would still be stressful," said Lanny Davis, a lawyer who served in the Clinton White House for two years handling the response to Ken Starr's independent counsel investigation. Politics Meet President Trump's Outside Legal Team "You would be worried about innuendo in the media, which convicts you even if there are no facts. You have the danger of being smeared in headlines nowadays especially on the Internet, where there are no facts at all. It's just pure rumors."Davis says he's spoken with members of the Trump administration who were looking for advice about whether to hire private lawyers — yes, he said — and how to structure a White House in the midst of an investigation — try not to let it permeate everything.Davis says he even spoke to Trump's former top adviser Steve Bannon.But no matter how hard White House officials try to isolate the investigation, to put it out of their mind and focus on their work, "it's like a cloud or mist that never goes away," he told NPR.Davis remembered how in the Clinton White House, everyone was so afraid of getting into the investigative crosshairs that many people stopped taking notes. He used 3-by-5 notecards that, as a practice, he'd throw out at the end of the day. He imagines aides in the Trump White House are experiencing similar highs and lows. "You're so thrilled to be there, and when you walk down the driveway early in the morning and you see the house lit up and you think, 'Gosh, Abraham Lincoln walked down these very same stones,' " said Davis."You say, 'I'm so lucky to be here.' And then you walk into your office and you turn the lights on and you suddenly see some 3-by-5 cards from notes you took the day before and you think, 'Oh my God, I didn't throw those away last night. Now what do I do?' "For his part, current White House special counsel Ty Cobb, who projects a permanently unruffled attitude, insists aides in the Trump administration are sanguine about the whole thing. Politics Trump Taps Washington Lawyer To Become White House Special Counsel Amid Russia Probes "I don't think there's, you know, much angst here," he said. Getting the truth out will be better than the worst of the breathless reporting on the investigation, Cobb argued.That's why, he said, under Cobb's guidance, the White House posture has been full cooperation with the investigation. He also praised the investigative team itself. "I think it's been highly professionally done. And I think they have moved with an alacrity that they're proud of and that the American people can be proud of," said Cobb. Even so, the president and his allies often undercut the investigation, calling it a "witch hunt," or suggesting the real scandal involves Democrats. As for how much longer the special counsel's microscope will stay on the president and his administration, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders insists things are nearing the conclusion. Cobb, on the other hand, says the timeline is up to Mueller.

When ICICI Bank opened India’s first full-fledged electronic branches in 2012, many were left baffled.For the Indian customer bred on tedious traditional banking even post-privatisation in the early 1990s, not interacting with human beings for routine tasks was just unsettling. Placing cheque-book requests, updating passbooks, conducting cash transactions, or even making enquiries—tasks that earlier ate up hours—were now one step short of instantaneous, thanks to the machines.And that was just the beginning.Today there is little need to even visit branches—automated or otherwise. There are fewer and fewer Indians who now deal directly with bank officials for their money. Indian banking’s future is now mostly discussed in terms of big data, artificial intelligence, bots, blockchain technology, mobile applications, digital money, and cloud computing.Not surprisingly, once among India’s top employment creators, the sector now stares at job redundancies, more so in the lower rungs. Automation and digitisation are massively disrupting branch banking while bots are replacing even call-centre personnel.The effect of all of this on jobs can be gauged from the fact that the number of openings for clerks at the exams held by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection for vacancies at public sector banks has drastically fallen from 25,000 in 2015 to 7,880 in 2017.More and more lenders are wooing the digitally savvy, smartphone-toting millennials. The government, too, is pushing digital transactions to curb the parallel economy. As a result, the need for staff per branch is falling.From a cost perspective, too, it makes sense for the lenders. Transaction costs fall by half when a customer uses an ATM instead of visiting a branch. It goes down by three-quarters when mobile-banking or internet-banking is used.Of course there are other reasons, too, behind job losses.One is bad loans, which now form up to 12% of the total outstanding loans across all Indian banks. Instead of spending on business expansion, banks have had to focus on cleaning these up. Meanwhile, the economy’s slowdown has dampened the demand for funds, so banks aren’t hiring aggressively. And new-age and tech-intensive niche banks, working on thin margins, are even more stringent about hiring. For instance, the new payments bank soon to be launched by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance will mainly operate online or through outlets of his telecom firm, Reliance Jio, where employees will also provide basic banking services, reports say.Banks are in for a drastic role shift that involves adapting to more complex tasks.“Due to the use of technology, a lot of repetitive, mundane jobs such as data entry are being performed by machines. Therefore, employees need to upgrade their skills,” said Sunil Goel, managing director of executive search firm GlobalHunt. “People must get into profiles such as product development, risk management, underwriting loans, etc.”With the focus firmly on building the online and mobile infrastructure, organisations will seek employees well-equipped with digital skills.“We are re-skilling and training our existing staff…We have increased our hiring of technology graduates,” the YES Bank official said. The company expects young hires to have “a focus on fintech and innovation requiring new-age, modern competencies.”Overall, those with digital marketing experience are likely to find the going easier. “With all banks providing new and improved services on digital channels, they are also using this medium for customer acquisition,” said Ajay Shah, head of recruitment services at TeamLease, a human resources service company.Yet, some private banks are still looking to expand their branch network, which means more jobs, said Rajesh Dahiya, executive director, Axis Bank. “There will be growth for at least two more years but the game is going to change in the next three-five years.”The message to employees is fairly clear: Shape up or ship out.

Some of the most startling assertions by Mr. Comey revolved around his first meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower just days before the inauguration. That day, intelligence officials, including Mr. Comey, briefed the incoming president on Russia’s attempt to meddle with the election.Mr. Comey said Mr. Trump and his aides seemed interested only in what the former F.B.I. director called the “P.R. and spin” about the issue.“The conversation, to my surprise, moved into a P.R. conversation about how the Trump team would position this and what they could say about this,” Mr. Comey said. “I don’t remember any questions about, ‘So what are they going to do next; how might we stop it? What’s the future look like? Because we’ll be custodians of the security of this country.’ There was none of that.”“It was all, ‘What can we say about what they did and how it affects the election that we just had?’” Mr. Comey said.It was at the end of the meeting that Mr. Comey said he asked to speak to Mr. Trump alone to brief him on the salacious “Steele dossier,” which contains unverified allegations about Mr. Trump, including a claim that the Russian government has video recordings of him watching prostitutes urinate on one another in a Moscow hotel room in 2013.Mr. Comey said Mr. Trump denied the allegations that day, saying, “Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?” Weeks later, in a telephone call after the dossier was published by BuzzFeed, Mr. Trump again denied the account in graphic terms, Mr. Comey said.“There’s no way I’d let people pee on each other around me,” Mr. Trump said, according to Mr. Comey’s account. Mr. Comey said the president also raised the idea that the F.B.I. should investigate the claim as a way of proving that it never happened. Mr. Comey said he warned Mr. Trump that doing so would add to “the narrative” that the president was under investigation.

Before his release on Friday, Mr. Choudary was placed on a United Nations sanctions list, which resulted in his assets being frozen. In order to cover his living expenses, he will have to apply for exceptions and will be required to disclose the purpose of all his payments, according to the former counterterrorism detective.Last month, the prisons minister, Rory Stewart, warned that Mr. Choudary’s release would pose a “genuinely dangerous” threat to public safety because of his “deeply pernicious, destabilizing influence.” Mr. Stewart told The Evening Standard newspaper that British intelligence and the police would have to “watch him like a hawk.”Mr. Choudary, a former lawyer and leader of a banned extremist group, played cat and mouse with the British authorities for 20 years. Then, along with an associate, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, he was accused of pledging allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, known as ISIS, in social media posts.The oath was circulated online on the ninth anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist attacks. Mr. Choudary was arrested in 2014, charged with inciting support for the Islamic State and convicted in 2016 in London’s central criminal court for inviting support for the militant group.Before his conviction, Mr. Choudary led the extremist group Al-Muhajiroun, which had inspired more than 100 Britons to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and has since splintered off into smaller groups that have incited terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.Khalid Masood, who killed five people after driving into a group of pedestrians in Westminster in 2017, was also a member of Al-Muhajiroun. The Islamic State described Mr. Masood as a disciple and a hero for the deadly assault carried out in the shadow of Big Ben.Mr. Choudary’s wife, Rubana Akhtar, 43, currently runs the female wing of Al-Muhajiroun and was under police investigation for 18 months after a video of her promoting Islamic State ideology emerged online. The investigation was dropped last month after the police concluded that she had not committed any terrorism offenses.

As political polarization continues to plague Washington, a rare consensus is emerging between the left and the right that America’s largest technology companies must be subject to greater scrutiny.US lawmakers are escalating their rhetoric against Silicon Valley, an industry that has long trafficked in its reputation as a leading source of innovation but is now under fire for what critics see as vast, unchecked power.The shifting political tides come as calls to regulate technology companies have made strange bedfellows of the likes of the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren and the ex-White House aide and Breitbart chief Steve Bannon.Speaking in Hong Kong last week, Bannon, the former chief strategist to Donald Trump, reiterated his view that tech giants such as Facebook and Google should be regulated like “public utilities”.The skepticism is shared by progressives such as Warren, who has warned of the monopolistic behavior of Google, Amazon and Apple while pushing for a renewed debate over antitrust laws.And while the tech sector is anything but homogeneous, with each platform raising its own unique set of policy questions, the verdict on Washington’s Capitol Hill is increasingly clear: for too long, Silicon Valley has gotten a free pass.“Silicon Valley is going from being heroes to villains,” said Vivek Wadhwa, a distinguished fellow and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “It’s been brewing for quite a while, but there’s a big shift happening.” On the right of the political spectrum, the big tech platforms are seen as socially liberal and “globalist” and therefore clash with core Republican positions on borders and immigration. The recent furor at Google, which sacked an employee, Jamie Damore, after he penned a memo entitled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber”, also drew fire from the right and dragged the major tech companies into the culture wars. Critics on the right claim Silicon Valley is politically and culturally monolithic and doesn’t tolerate non-liberal views. The commodification of data and privacy is also starting to emerge as an issue for lawmakers. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican representative from Tennessee, recently introduced a bill that would restore Federal Communications Commission privacy protections that members of her party killed earlier this year. The legislation would impose rules requiring companies ranging from Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to Facebook and Google to obtain customers’ consent before they can sell sensitive information, such as users’ browsing histories, to advertisers and other entities.In the last week alone, lawmakers in the United States have pitted themselves against tech companies in disparate ways.A Senate hearing held on Tuesday on a bill to combat online sex trafficking illuminated a rift over whether internet companies should be liable for user-generated content. In a separate matter, Facebook announced on Thursday it would hand over thousands of political advertisements to Congress that were purchased from Russian accounts as part of Moscow’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 US election.The sex trafficking bill, which enjoys broad bipartisan support from 30 senators, has met with fervent opposition from the tech industry due to its proposed changes to a law that shields internet companies from liability over third-party content. But at the hearing, a representative from the group that lobbies on behalf of tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter suggested there might yet be room for a compromise.A Washington-based employee of at least one major tech company dismissed the grumbling on Capitol Hill. The employee, who requested anonymity to discuss private negotiations, countered that tech companies had been engaged on the sex trafficking issue and that the attacks from the Senate had “exaggerated the conflict”.The sex trafficking debate and Russia inquiry are just two fronts in what could shape up to be a more protracted battle. And for the first time, policymakers and commentators in the US are starting to question who will pay the price of automation as it sets about transforming the labor market. Already a battle is looming in Congress with the labor unions as they attempt to frustrate efforts to introduce legislation that would facilitate the widespread use of self-driving trucks, thus placing in jeopardy the livelihoods of close to 2 million American truckers. As Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, noted in a recent post: “The new spotlight on these companies doesn’t come out of nowhere. They sit, substantively, at the heart of the biggest and most pressing issues facing the United States, and often stand on the less popular side of those: automation and inequality, trust in public life, privacy and security.”But the issue involving Facebook underscores what observers say is emerging as the most pressing question before legislators as they weigh how to regulate the tech sector: who owns the data? Forcing Facebook to hand over its information on election spending is being viewed as an initial victory for Silicon Valley’s critics in the debate over who has the rights to data. But by and large, critics argue that internet companies are not yet subject to any meaningful obligations with respect to how they harvest and use consumer data. “The regulations are such that the penalties for not properly securing data are so weak that it’s not cost effective for tech companies to spend all this money on complex industrial security,” said Wadhwa. “We need to now have severe penalties for data breachers, and we may need to look at the entire ownership of data issue.” The New Center Project, an endeavor that seeks to eschew political labels in favor of finding common ground, issued a series of policy recommendations including reining in the tech sector in order to “recenter” the US economy. Among its proposals were to address how digital companies use network effects to crowd out potential competition, redefine and crack down on predatory pricing practices, apply tougher scrutiny to mergers that undermine competition within sectors, and enact new rules and procedures to speed antitrust litigation. “Since many big technology companies have, to date, delivered lower-cost or even free services, they’ve escaped scrutiny even while violating consumer privacy and hindering competition,” the report concluded. Topics US politics Silicon Valley Steve Bannon Elizabeth Warren Facebook Google Amazon features

Enlarge this image Flooded houses near Lake Houston on Aug. 30, after the storm called Harvey swept through. Sociologist Clare Cooper Marcus says our homes hold our emotional history — our memories, our hopes, our dreams and pain. In some ways our homes are who we are. Win McNamee/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Win McNamee/Getty Images Flooded houses near Lake Houston on Aug. 30, after the storm called Harvey swept through. Sociologist Clare Cooper Marcus says our homes hold our emotional history — our memories, our hopes, our dreams and pain. In some ways our homes are who we are. Win McNamee/Getty Images When Boyd Coble heard the sheriff's deputy pounding on his door in Houston in the middle of the night, he rolled over and went back to sleep. Coble, who lives alone, except for his Australian sheepdog, Wally, knew all about Hurricane Harvey. He just didn't think his own home would flood. It never had before, and even if a little water did trickle in, Coble was pretty sure he and Wally could ride it out.By the time the water was about 4 inches deep in his house, Coble says, things started happening. His floors were buckling, his stuff was floating around and Wally was having a hard time sloshing around in the water.Coble, a retiree, wasn't doing so well himself. He'd stopped eating very much and his strength was starting to go. And yet, he was determined to stay home.About 4:30 the next morning — on Aug. 29 — the sheriff's deputy returned to Coble's house, this time banging insistently on the front door. Coble looked out the window, and saw a boat in his front yard and a deputy on his stoop imploring him to open up. Once again Coble shook his head, "No thanks," and turned to go back to bed.The deputy refused to leave, so Coble slowly got dressed and went to hear what he had to say. He recalls the officer looking at him and saying in no uncertain terms, " 'You need to leave now. Grab your most important belongings and let's go!' " He told Coble the water in that area could rise as much as 9 feet."I guess he scared me," Coble says, "so I got some stuff together, and my dog, and we went." Enlarge this image Boyd Coble at the Al-Salam Mosque in North Houston, in late August, waiting out the storm that had forced him to flee his home. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR Boyd Coble at the Al-Salam Mosque in North Houston, in late August, waiting out the storm that had forced him to flee his home. Ryan Kellman/NPR I met Coble the next day — in a shelter at the Al-Salam Mosque in north Houston. He was wearing a baseball cap — with the name of the oil and gas company where he used to work written across the top. Coble was pale and hunched, a wheelchair poised next to him.He told me then that he regretted leaving his home and that he figured that "9 feet" was probably an exaggeration. I shook my head and said "Boyd, your floors were buckling, your dog couldn't get around. Why stay under those conditions?"He gave me a gentle smile and said, " 'cause I'm a homebody."His story is not unusual. Each time a disaster threatens and authorities try to get people to evacuate, a certain number refuse to leave their homes. They each have particular reasons; but in the face of impending doom, the arguments can sound thin. The Two-Way With Bottles And Buckets, Puerto Ricans Seek The Water To Survive In Puerto Rico, when a hurricane of historic proportions was on its way, some residents insisted on staying home because the evacuation shelters didn't have enough cots.In Houston, Salma Rao and her husband Zulfiqar Sheikh told me they live with their elderly in-laws, so moving to a shelter seemed impossible. In fact, they were so determined to stay in their house that when the toilets started backing up and overflowing they chose to stop eating and drinking to avoid using the toilets, rather than move to a shelter.Even the risk of starvation and dehydration were apparently better than leaving home. The Two-Way Police Say Teenage Boy Suspected Of Starting Massive Oregon Wildfire It might defy logic to grip so tightly when the ship is sinking, but Clare Cooper Marcus, a social scientist and retired professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, says there is something profound behind it. Our homes are the keepers of our selves — our memories, our hopes, our dreams and pain. In some ways our homes are who we are.Cooper Marcus spent 20 years exploring people's emotional relationships with where they live, and published her findings in a book: House as a Mirror of Self — Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home.When she started the book, Cooper Marcus says, architects and designers weren't asking people how they "felt" about their housing. They'd only asked pragmatic questions — "Do you like the kitchen?" "How is that common area working out for you?"Cooper Marcus wanted to help architects go deeper — to take into account the emotional relationships people have with their environment.So, she launched a project for which, borrowing a role-playing technique from Gestalt Therapy, she met with people in their own homes and asked them to close their eyes and speak directly to the home. "Talk to it, tell it how you feel about it," she said.One of the most dramatic patterns she noticed, as she talked to these people, were the striking parallels between their current homes and the homes of their childhood. Sometimes these parallels were positive — in the way, say, they'd decorated — and sometimes negative, as in never being able to relax at home, because their childhood home had been unhappy, a place they'd always tried to escape. The Two-Way Long After The Hurricanes Have Passed, Hard Work — And Hazards — Remain Whatever the experience, Cooper Marcus says, it was clear that the home and the many things in it held a value deeper than the thing itself. We don't tend to think of inanimate objects in terms of feelings, and usually not in terms of love, she says, until "we lose them."One woman quoted in Cooper Marcus' book relates her personal experience of facing down such a threat. It was the fall of 1991. Fire was ripping its way through the hills around Berkeley and Oakland, Calif., and she and her husband were forced to leave home fast. She describes what happened that evening, after they left, this way: "Through the night, tossing in an unfamiliar bed, I imagined my house fending for itself, like the little house in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. At dawn, when the fire had moved south of our neighborhood, we awoke, and my husband dialed the bulky hotel phone next to the bed. I heard the clear sound of my voice on our answering machine. After the beep, my husband whispered, 'Hello house, we love you.' " To be sure, disasters don't seem to know about love, nor do they seem to care what else is going on in our lives when they strike. When Harvey rushed in through Boyd Coble's door in late August, for example, it found grief: Coble's partner of 30 years had died only nine months before.Leaving home that night in the middle of the storm just intensified Coble's increasing sense of dread. "Bad things happen in threes," he remembers. "First my partner died, then came Harvey. I was just waiting for the third bad thing to happen."One week later, Coble was back home. Everything was still a mess, the floors were ruined, the walls, the insulation, the rugs, the furniture. It sounds overwhelming. But as Boyd describes this to me on the phone, he sounds so much different than he did in the shelter — like a completely different person. He's energetic, brighter. And, he tells me, he's not waiting anymore for something bad to happen.Everything is going to be OK now, he says — now that he is "back in his element." Now that he's home.

(Reuters) - A partisan fight over a North Carolina congressional contest under investigation for election fraud intensified on Friday after legal developments reshaped a state elections board. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump greets Mark Harris, Republican candidate from North Carolina's 9th Congressional district, in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S., October 26, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File PhotoA combination of court rulings and changes to state law left the top vote-getter in an initial tally, Republican Mark Harris, seemingly no closer to taking office. A leading Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer, said his party would object to seating Harris when it takes control in the new Congress that convenes on Jan. 3. “In this instance, the integrity of our democratic process outweighs concerns about the seat being vacant at the start of the new Congress,” Hoyer said in a statement, citing “the now well-documented election fraud that took place” in the contest. Harris filed an emergency petition earlier on Friday to be certified as victor of last month’s election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. His request was rejected by a state elections board reviewing whether mail-in ballots were illegally handled in some rural counties. But the future of that investigation was thrown into doubt by a state court ruling and newly passed law. The state elections board was disbanded on Friday, after a state court on Thursday declined to extend a stay on a previous order declaring the composition of the board unconstitutional. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said he would immediately appoint an interim board to continue the investigation until a restructured elections board was due to begin operating at the end of January under a new state law. “It is vital that the State Board of Elections finish its investigation of potential election fraud in the Ninth Congressional District,” Cooper’s office said in a statement. North Carolina’s board of elections could order a new vote. The U.S. House could also rule on the election outcome in a contest where Harris initially edged out Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. Since the November election, residents of rural Bladen County have stated in affidavits that people came to their homes and collected incomplete absentee ballots. It is illegal in North Carolina for a third party to turn in absentee ballots. Republicans said the investigation has not turned up evidence of sufficient improprieties to change the outcome. “All the Democrats want to do is delay and delay and delay,” Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, said in a phone interview. In a statement, Harris’ attorney David Freedman said the Republican candidate had cooperated fully with the state investigation and looked forward to its resolution “so that he may serve the people of the Ninth Congressional District as he was elected to do.” A representatives for the McCready campaign could not immediately be reached for comment. State Democrats contend that Republicans have undermined the elections system by a Republican-controlled legislature ramming through changes, including the reshaped elections board. “Mark Harris and the Republicans who support him want to steal this election,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Wayne Goodwin said at a news conference. “They want to have him certified and sworn into Congress even though we have immensurable questions at this point.” Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Additional reporting by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Leslie Adler and Cynthia OstermanOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Some present at the meeting, including Mr. McGahn, were alarmed that the president had decided to fire the F.B.I. director after consulting only Ms. Trump, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Miller. Mr. McGahn began an effort to stop the letter or at least pare it back.Later that day, Mr. McGahn gave Mr. Miller a marked-up copy of the letter, highlighting several sections that he believed needed to be removed.Mr. McGahn met again that same day with Mr. Trump and told him that if he fired Mr. Comey, the Russia investigation would not go away. Mr. Trump told him, according to senior administration officials, that he understood that firing the F.B.I. director might extend the Russia investigation, but that he wanted to do it anyway.Mr. McGahn arranged for the president to meet in the Oval Office that day with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein, who he knew had been pursuing separate efforts to fire Mr. Comey. The two men were particularly angry about testimony Mr. Comey had given to the Senate Judiciary Committee the previous week, when he said “it makes me mildly nauseous” to think his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation might have had an impact on the 2016 election.Mr. Comey’s conduct during the hearing added to concerns of Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein that the F.B.I. director had botched the rollout of the Clinton investigation and had overstepped the boundaries of his job. Shortly after that hearing, Mr. Rosenstein expressed his concerns about Mr. Comey to a White House lawyer, who relayed details of the conversation to his bosses at the White House.During the May 8 Oval Office meeting with Mr. Trump, Mr. Rosenstein was given a copy of the original letter and agreed to write a separate memo for Mr. Trump about why Mr. Comey should be fired.Mr. Rosenstein’s memo arrived at the White House the next day. The lengthy diatribe Mr. Miller had written had been replaced by a simpler rationale — that Mr. Comey should be dismissed because of his handling of the Clinton email investigation. Unlike Mr. Trump’s letter, it made no mention of the times Mr. Comey had told the president he was not under investigation.

Baidu’s Raven H smart speaker is meant to be noticed. Whereas Amazon and Google chose to dress their speakers in neutral tones and fabric materials, the Raven H resembles a stack of green, blue, red, and orange blocks, with a partially coiled power cord that would look at home on a rotary phone.But that standout design belies Baidu’s actual strategy for winning the virtual assistant wars–first in its home market of China, soon in Japan, and maybe someday in Western markets. As a Google-like web giant that runs the most popular Chinese search engine, Baidu would rather help other companies release their own hardware than sell homegrown products like the Raven H. To that end, the Raven H costs about $250–four times the price of third-party speakers running Baidu’s DuerOS AI.Therein lies the biggest strategic difference between Baidu and U.S. firms in the voice assistant business. Although Amazon and Google also work with third-party hardware makers, their own Echo and Home speakers are among the cheapest and best on the market. They’re mainstream products, not aspirational ones like the Raven H.Raven H [Photo: Jared Newman]“Echo is actually competing with other smart speakers,” says Kun Jing, the head of Baidu’s DuerOS platform. “If you get a discount on an Echo, a lot of other smart speakers are hard to sell. For us, we only build one first-party product, and this one is not cheap.”Last week, Baidu set up a booth at the CES trade show in Las Vegas for the first time. Nestled within a section for robotics, far away from the mega-spaces of tech behemoths like Samsung and Sony, Baidu’s presence wasn’t the splashiest. But by showing up, Baidu was hoping to leave an impression on current and potential partners that operate outside of China.Even before the show, Baidu had been making progress on those fronts. In December, Qualcomm and Baidu announced a plan to optimize DuerOS for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips on smartphones and other connected devices. Another tie-in with LinkPlay, which provides Wi-Fi modules for Alexa-enabled devices, will allow vendors to easily convert Alexa products into DuerOS ones. Jing also says that a representative from Disney approached Baidu during CES to discuss bringing U.S. content to China via Baidu’s iQiyi streaming service, which of course integrates with DuerOS on connected televisions.“We want to use this global stage to show international partners how we innovate at China speed, and how we enable our partners to create very innovative products,” Jing says.Raven H Photo: Jared Newman]A Top You Can Take OffThe Raven H is supposed to help attract that international attention. Borne from a startup called Raven Tech, which Baidu acquired in February 2017, the product was created in collaboration with Swedish design firm Teenage Engineering. And beyond its standout appearance, it offers a few clever ideas not found in the Echo and Google Home.Most notably, the top panel is removable and stores personal information such as music and video preferences, allowing users to slap it onto another base station in another room or at someone else’s home. And while the Raven H doesn’t have a full-blown display, an array of LED lights can represent things like rain when the user asks about the weather.The top panel also connects with the Raven R, another device Baidu plans to launch later this year. Although the functionality is similar, the Raven R can turn and look at the user in response to voice commands, using the LED lights to create a pair of eyes. It helps that Baidu’s AI acknowledges its wake phrase by voice, with phrases like “I’m listening” or “I’m here.”Raven R [Photo: Jared Newman]International MovesBaidu and its fleet of DuerOS devices aren’t coming to the United States anytime soon, if ever. But the company is looking to expand outside of China.The first attempt will be in Japan, where Jing says apartments are similar to Chinese ones in size and occupancy. In addition to the Raven H, Baidu is working with Sengled to sell a smart ceiling lamp with a built-in projector, which should be easier to install than a big-screen TV for renters living in cramped spaces, Jing says. Using Baidu’s assistant, users will be able to launch videos using hands-free voice commands. If that goes according to plan, other developing countries such as India and Brazil could be next.“We will start with the Japan market, and we’ll wait and see,” says Jing.In any case, Baidu isn’t thinking of Amazon and Google in terms of competition. The voice assistant business is young, Jing says, and right now the most important thing is to expand the market. On that note, he was inspired by the huge presence for Alexa and Google Assistant at CES.“We still need a lot of education on the market for users, saying ‘This is a must-have device,'” Jing says. “So I’m super happy to see that Alexa and Google Assistant are doing a lot of education.”Baidu’s work may be rubbing off on its American counterparts as well. Although Amazon and Google have led the way with their own smart speakers, they’ve started to entrust hardware partners with the work of expanding Alexa and Google Assistant into new categories. Google, for instance, is leaning on Lenovo, JBL, and others for the first Assistant-powered “smart displays,” while Amazon is helping outside companies build Alexa earbuds and wearables, for now in lieu of selling its own.According to Jing, Baidu believes deeply in enabling such partners instead of competing with them. “Look at Android’s success,” he says. “Google didn’t build their phone first. They partnered with HTC and Samsung to make it successful,” Jing says. “Really, the openness of the platform is critical for success.”

When researching my book Wellmania (available in all good book shops, and some bad ones), I spent many months immersed in online fasting communities. Their system of belief was whole, coherent and logical – to them. But their beliefs about toxins, the digestive system, cellular biology and the spread of disease in the body were totally unrelated to the philosophies and findings of modern medicine. And often dangerous.Theories were grabbed from here and there – including the Hindu Vedas and the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca – who believed fasting both provided a rest for the body and a discipline for the mind. Much of the wisdom and advice in these communities is via intuition and people’s own experiences of their body. So science says there’s no such thing as toxins. But in the fasting community if you don’t eat for a week or more and you start to feel unwell, that’s the toxins coming out. And when you feel amazing in week two, surely that’s your body’s state when you’re toxin-free. The community explains your body’s unpleasant reaction to lack of food by calling it a “healing crisis” that indicates you are on the right track.Mainstream medicine dismisses the notion of a healing crisis and says the ache in your body is due to a severe depletion of essential vitamins and minerals.The use of the word “toxins” in this way entered the mainstream long ago, but the gap between the scientific and some intuitive health communities can be so broad sometimes, it’s as if both parties are talking about completely different things. And if you are someone who accepts the logic of a certain system of belief – whether that be a food system or a philosophical system – then people from outside that system who criticise it can be dismissed and simply not heard. It’s the natural manifestation of a trend we are already seeing. Trust in journalism is at an all-time low. The US election was won by Donald Trump in part because of this distrust. And the proliferation of communities that have their own belief systems, leaders and experts, theories and knowledge that exist and thrive outside the mainstream. In fact their very identity is defined in relation and opposition to the mainstream. Steve Bannon, Breitbart chief and Trump strategist, made his political and media career tapping into those communities and voices that felt alienated from the mainstream. And the mainstream didn’t see it coming. There is us – and them. As John Harris pointed out this week, the liberal left won’t defeat Trump until they understand him. But they aren’t really hearing him yet, either. The people within that system remain adherents to it for many reasons: it makes sense to them, it has worked for them, there is evidence of a standard that is accepted in that community, and the evidence supports the diet. Dogma – whether it be around politics or diet – hardens opinion like a high-sugar diet on artery walls. Last week I watched The Magic Pill, the “paleo film” starring Australia’s famous/notorious paleo guru, Pete Evans. It starts in northern Australia – with the Indigenous Yolngu community struggling with blood sugar diseases triggered by whitefella foods. What would it be like, the film wonders, if these Indigenous people went back to their hunter-gather traditions, to eating “meat and vegetables that come from a place that is closest to its natural state”?Some things presented in The Magic Pill are irrefutable: a diet of processed, sugary, packaged foods will lead to poor health outcomes, that certain low-level chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure (which can lead to type 2 diabetes) can be controlled by weight management and exercise and diet, and that the proliferation of low-fat, high-sugar products has not halted a global obesity epidemic.The Magic Pill takes you through all of this and introduces us to people who are struggling with modern conditions. There is a little girl with non-verbal autism, a diabetic, an asthmatic and a woman with cancer. What would happen if these unwell people ate like our ancestors? Could food be the magic pill that can cure disease? In the film, over the course of five weeks on the paleo diet, these people are shown to drastically reduce their symptoms and reliance on pills.This is where The Magic Pill deviates from other food or health films like The Sugar Film and Supersize Me. The paleo eating plan is not just about losing a few extra pounds – it’s about curing yourself from disease.Dr Michael Gannon, the head of the Australian Medical Association, called the film “ridiculous”. I also found a lot of the film credulous. “The idea that a high-fat diet can change a child’s behaviour in a month is just so patently ridiculous,” Gannon says. “And yet the reality is the parents of autistic children are so desperate they will reach for anything.”But head to Pete Evans’ Facebook page and you’ll find a community there of more than 1.5 million people. Around 1,600 people commented on the AMA’s attack saying things such as: “This is such a great example of how the media can persuade the masses to stay on course with multinational convenience products. Which promotes disease, which promotes pharmaceutical companies.” The enemy here in this world is broad and hydra-headed: the AMA, established medicine, big pharma, the media. The Magic Pill is distributed and screened in cinemas across Australia via groups of people interested in the paleo way of life. Promotion and tickets to the film are organised through the internet and the group’s social media. If enough people are interested in seeing the film, then a screening will go ahead.Films supporting the views of a particular community can be privately or crowdfunded, bypassing the usual ways a documentary receives funding. Those that receive government funding and are commissioned by the ABC, for example, have to tackle things like bias in the storytelling. “When you self-fund it – you get anti-vaxxers and the like and you can get the message out without checks and balances,” one TV executive told me. Technology and social media have created new ways of forming communities. New methods of distribution, much of which is also web-based, have facilitated the spread of information within those communities. Facebook groups set up for communities of like-minded people act like a hive, identifying common enemies, debunking them and promoting the work of people who reinforce that community’s beliefs. These group are not swayed by orthodox science, government-sanctioned medical opinion or the views of the mainstream media. In fact criticism from these institutions that contradict the group’s dominant philosophy act to strengthen the group, and reinforce the belief that big corporations are conspiring to quash the knowledge and practices of the group. The role of big business and big pharma in the development of food and medicine should be questioned and tested, and not every conspiracy theory is nutty. Yet the distrust that binds the group together can cut out the good science and the diligent and tested government warnings (about vaccinations, for example). The baby then is thrown out with the unpasteurised bath milk. So: fight, or flight? Gannon can’t let this stuff pass. To doctors it’s a matter of life and death. But we are splintered, atomised, super-sceptical. The internet has liberated voices; but it doesn’t always reward the merits of the argument. Especially if we don’t know that the argument is going on. Topics Life and style Brigid Delaney's diary Health Diets and dieting Food comment