Tag Archives: 부천 마사지

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12 earthquake she accelerated the plan and recruited her fellow missionaries

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A Haitian judge has decided to release 10 American missionaries accused of kidnapping children in Haiti, Reuters news agency reported Wednesday afternoon, siting a “judicial source”.

The judge decided the Americans had no “criminal intentions” when they tried to take the children out of Haiti, according to Reuters’ report.

A defense lawyer for the Americans, however, tells The Associated Press that the judge deciding whether the Baptist group should face trial for attempting to take a busload of children out of the country is probably ready to make his ruling, but has not yet decided what that ruling will be.

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil finished questioning the Americans on Wednesday and now must transmit his recommendation to the prosecutor, lawyer Gary Lassade toldd the AP.

The prosecutor could appeal if the judge recommended dropping charges, but the judge has the last say, the attorney told The Associated Press on Wednesday. He said he expected the judge to issue that final decision Thursday.

Haiti Earthquake – Latest CoverageHaiti Relief: How You Can Help

“The judge will not take a decision before he sends his finding to the prosecutor,” Lassade told the AP.

The Americans, most from an Idaho Baptist group, were charged last week with child kidnapping and criminal association after being arrested Jan. 29 trying to take 33 children, ages 2 to 12, across the border to an orphanage they were trying to set up in the Dominican Republic.

The day after the group’s arrest, its leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, told the AP that the children were obtained either from orphanages or from distant relatives. She said only children who were found not to have living parents or relatives who could care for them might be put up for adoption.

Who is Laura Silsby?

However, at least 20 of the children are from a single village and have living parents. Some of the parents told the AP they willingly turned over their children to the missionaries on the promise the Americans would educate them and allow relatives to visit.

Saint-Vil questioned at least two of the parents Wednesday as well as the 10 Americans.

In a brief conversation afterward through cell bars in the stuffy, grimy jail where they have been held, the missionaries refused to be interviewed by the AP.

“We’ve said all we’re going to say for now. We don’t want to talk now,” Silsby said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

The women were held separately from the men, who shared their cell with nine Haitian men, some of whom played checkers on the cell floor.

“We will not talk unless our lawyer is present,” said Paul Thompson, pastor of the Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. Lassade represents Thompson’s cousin, Jim Allen of Amarillo, Texas.

A Dallas attorney for Allen, Hiram Sasser, told the AP that his client was recruited just 48 hours before the group left last month for the Dominican Republic on what Silsby termed an emergency rescue mission.

“He did not know many of the other people who were on the mission trip, or what other people were going to do, or about paperwork,” Sasser said.

Silsby had decided last summer to create an orphanage in the Dominican Republic and 부천 안마 in November registered the nonprofit New Life Children’s Refuge foundation in Idaho.

After Haiti’s catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake she accelerated the plan and recruited her fellow missionaries. Silsby told the AP she was only interested in saving suffering children.

She told the AP after her arrest, however, that she did not have all the Haitian papers required to take the children out of the country.

A Dominican diplomat who said she visited him the same day the missionaries tried to take the children out of the country told the AP that he warned her that without those papers she could be arrested.


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Analysts say a potential succession struggle in the wake of Mehsud’s death could temporarily weaken the Pakistani Taliban but not cripple its ability to carry out deadly attacks

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The attack came on the day the country’s top civilian security official told the Associated Press that . It was the government’s first categorical confirmation of the death of the feared militant, whose passing is likely to weaken, but not vanquish, the al Qaeda-linked insurgent network he led.

The suicide bomber who attacked police in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal area Wednesday was able to get inside their vehicle before detonating his explosives, said local tribesman Izzakhana Afridi, who witnessed the bombing.

“I saw him running and jumping into the Khasadar vehicle and then an explosion pushed me down to the ground some 50 yards away,” said Afridi, using the official name of the tribal police.

Rasheed Khan, a local government official, said the blast killed 10 policemen, six civilians and one paramilitary officer.

Police official Ibrahim Khan, who survived the explosion because he was outside the vehicle, said the blast also injured about a dozen other civilians.

“I was about 30 yards away when a huge explosion occurred and I fell on the ground,” said Khan. “I looked back and found our vehicle destroyed and my colleagues in a pool of blood.”

No group has claimed responsibility, but Taliban militants often target Pakistani security forces.

Reports of Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud’s death emerged after a spate of U.S. missiles hit his stronghold in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt in mid-January. Mehsud was said to have died of wounds suffered in one of the strikes in the Waziristan region – another big victory for the CIA-led missile campaign that killed Mehsud’s predecessor just six months ago.

The Taliban have repeatedly denied his death, but backed off an initial promise to prove the 28-year-old was still alive. The militant group also denied his predecessor’s death for weeks until the succession question was settled.

In a response to an AP query, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, wrote, “Yes, he is dead.” A senior intelligence official concurred separately. Neither gave details as to when or how the militant died.

The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

In late January, a tribal elder told the AP that he attended Mehsud’s funeral in the Mamuzai area of the Orakzai tribal region after Mehsud died at his in-laws’ home. Some local media reports, citing unnamed Taliban sources, said Mehsud died more recently in the Multan area of central Pakistan on his way to receive medical treatment in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi.

In the first few days after the mid-January missile strikes, the Taliban released a pair of audiotapes believed to carry Mehsud’s voice, in which he insisted he was fine. They have stopped offering additional evidence, one reason U.S. counterterrorism officials also are increasingly certain he died.

Still, Mehsud has been mistakenly reported dead before.

After his predecessor, fellow tribesman Baitullah Mehsud, died in an August missile strike, the Pakistani interior minister was among those who claimed Hakimullah was killed in a succession struggle. But the militant met with reporters, on camera, in the weeks afterward and went on to lead a surge of bomb attacks across the country that left more than 600 people dead.

Hakimullah Mehsud has been considered a particularly ruthless Taliban fighter with grand ambitions.

He appeared in a video with a Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees in eastern Afghanistan. After that Dec. 30 attack, the U.S. temporarily ramped up its missile campaign in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

There are reports that commanders already are lining up to vie for his position as Taliban chief.

Among the potential successors are Waliur Rehman, the deputy Taliban commander who oversaw operations in the South Waziristan region. The Pakistani army is waging an offensive in that Afghan border area against the group that has damaged much of its infrastructure.

Another name being floated is that of Maulvi Toofan, a Taliban commander reported to be based in Orakzai, a region gaining importance as militants flee there from South Waziristan.

Malik, the interior minister, also said Wednesday that Pakistan is investigating reports that Qari Hussain, another Hakimullah deputy, had also been killed. If confirmed, Hussain’s death would be a significant blow to the group because he was in charge of training suicide bombers and had close ties to other militant networks.

Analysts say a potential succession struggle in the wake of Mehsud’s death could temporarily weaken the Pakistani Taliban but not cripple its ability to carry out deadly attacks.

The Taliban’s campaign of bomb attacks in towns and cities across Pakistan had eased in recent weeks, although 34 people were killed in twin bombings in Karachi last Friday.

Also Wednesday, a Pakistani army Cobra helicopter gunship crashed in the remote Tirah Valley of Pakistan’s Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said.

Another army official said the helicopter’s pilot and gunner are missing and feared dead. He said the crash appeared to have been caused by either bad weather or 대구 안마 a mechanical failure. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.


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The second stage of Haiti’s medical emergency has begun, with diarrheal illnesses, acute respiratory infections and malnutrition beginning to claim lives by the dozen

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“Sometimes they arrive too late,” said Dr. Adrien Colimon, the chief of pediatrics, shaking her head.

The second stage of Haiti’s medical emergency has begun, with diarrheal illnesses, acute respiratory infections and malnutrition beginning to claim lives by the dozen.

And while the half-million people jammed into germ-breeding makeshift camps have so far been spared a contagious-disease outbreak, health officials fear epidemics. They are rushing to vaccinate 530,000 children against measles, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

“It’s still tough,” said Chris Lewis, emergency health co-ordinator for Save the Children, which by Tuesday had treated 11,000 people at 14 mobile clinics in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and Leogane. “At the moment we’re providing lifesaving services. What we’d like to do is to move to provide quality, longer-term care, but we’re not there yet.”

Haiti’s government raised the death toll for the Jan. 12 earthquake to 230,000 on Tuesday – the same death toll as the 2004 Asian tsunami. Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said she expects the toll to rise as more bodies are counted, and noted the number does not include bodies buried privately by funeral homes or families.

The number of deaths not directly caused by the quake is unclear; U.N. officials are only now beginning to survey the more than 200 international medical aid groups working out of 91 hospitals – most of them just collections of tents – to compile the data.

Special Report: Road to Recovery in Haiti

Some 300,000 people are injured. At Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital, patients continue arriving with infections in wounds they can’t keep clean because the street is their home. The number of amputees, estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 by Handicap International, keeps rising as people reach Port-au-Prince with untreated fractures.

Violence bred of food shortages and inadequate security is also producing casualties. Dr. Santiago Arraffat of Evansville, Ind., said he treats several gunshot wounds a day at General Hospital.

“People are just shooting each other,” he said. “There are fights over food. People are so desperate.”

Nearly a month after the quake, respiratory infections, malnutrition, diarrhea from waterborne diseases and a lack of appropriate food for young children may be the biggest killers, health workers say.

Part of the problem is ignorance. Abigail’s mother, 20-year-old Simone Bess, waited a week after her child fell ill to bring her in, Colimon said.

Colimon ushered Bess into an adjacent tent when it became clear the Swiss doctors trying to hydrate and keep her child breathing would fail. Bess screamed in agony and crumpled to the paving stones when she heard.

“Please give me my child!” she wailed. “My one and only child. Tell them to do something for her! Tell them to wake her up!”

Twenty yards away, the child’s father, James Charlot, curled up against a wall, shaking with grief.

A shortage of medical equipment and spotty electrical power – service has been restored to about 20 per cent of Port-au-Prince – have worsened the medical emergency.

A respirator might have saved Abigail, Colimon said. But the hospital has none. Nor does it have electrocardiogram machines. The sweltering heat inside the pediatric tent may also have been a factor.

“This whole tent – all (the infants inside) are dried up because it’s so hot in there,” said Willow Walsh-Hughes, of Draper, Utah, a nurse who hugged and stroked Bess as her child’s life slipped away.

The wire-thin Bess had stopped lactating after the quake, Walsh-Hughes said. Because breast-feeding is the best way to avoid infant diarrhea, a mother’s ability to lactate can determine a baby’s survival.

At another General Hospital tent, Farah Paul, 16, held her acutely malnourished daughter Roselande. Doctors said the wan-looking, 4-month-old baby was coughing and not gaining weight.

Paul said her breast milk dried up the day of the quake, even before she learned that her sister, mother and aunt had been killed in the disaster. Doctors said Paul had given the baby porridge and bananas, 천안 마사지 food the child could not digest.

Acute child malnutrition is only expected to worsen until the summer harvest in August, said Mija Ververs, a UNICEF child nutrition expert.

Ververs said that while shock and trauma can cause a mother to stop lactating, it is a myth that hungry women can no longer breast-feed.

“Little infants are like parasites in a way. No matter how little the mother gets herself, she is always able to nourish a child,” Ververs said.

She noted that breast-feeding provides the best nutritional chance for babies in a crisis such as Haiti’s and protects against disease by helping them build immunity. Powdered infant formula is a terrible idea, doctors say, because mothers living in tent camps have limited access to clean water and are unable to sterilize bottles.

Forty-seven per cent of Haiti’s population of more than 9 million is under age 18. The Caribbean country has the Western Hemisphere’s highest birth rate and its highest child and maternal mortality rates. Haiti also has the hemisphere’s highest malnutrition rate – with some 17,500 children under age 5 acutely malnourished even before the quake, according to UNICEF.

At a Save the Children clinic west of the capital, about 30 people stood in line for help. Camp residents subsisting in part on plantains from an adjacent grove said two adults and five children died of starvation there last week. A clinic doctor, Nermie Augustin, said she was seeing a lot of infants with diarrhea.

A mother of five, Janina Desir, said her children were barely getting one meal a day.

“Since this morning all they’ve had was coffee – and a tiny portion of bread,” she said. “No milk.”

An official from a major field hospital said the case of 10 American Baptists charged with kidnapping for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti without permission was impeding the evacuation of critically injured youngsters to the U.S.

“Pilots are very reluctant to take off from the United States and take back children without the proper papers,” said Elizabeth Greig, chief administrative officer for the University of Miami-Medishare Foundation. “That fear has been exacerbated by the kidnapping case, and now they’re just paralyzed.”

The evacuation of eight critically injured children in all has been held up, Greig said. None of them are orphans, she said, but obtaining identity papers after a catastrophic quake can be impossible.

She said she could not say with confidence whether any children have died as a result.


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It’s All About Me – Chelsea Staub in the role of “Meredith” 8

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TheShowBuzz.com brings you an exclusive listening party featuring the complete original soundtrack from the movie, with songs by Jibbs, Ashlee Simpson, Lifehouse and more.

In the “Bratz” movie, due out Aug. 3, the dolls come to life as high school girls who vow to keep their friendship together even though their different interests in school are pulling them apart.

The Bratz fit into four different cliques. Janel Parrish plays Jade, the scientist; Skyler Shaye plays the jock, Cloe; Nathalia Ramos plays Yasmin, 청주 마사지 the singer-journalist; and Logan Browning plays Sasha, the cheerleader.

In their new school, Carry Nation High, the foursome discovers how difficult to navigate the high school’s social structure, which is based firmly on cliques. They decide that they should take a stand against pressure.

“Bratz – Original Movie Soundtrack” Track Listing1. Rock Star – Prima J 2. Fearless – Daechelle 3. Love Is Wicked – Brick & Lace 4. Rainy Day – Janel Parrish 5. Open Eyes – The Bratz 6. Heartburn – NLT 7. It’s All About Me – Chelsea Staub in the role of “Meredith” 8. Now or Never – Orianthi 9. Out From Under – Joanna 10. In Crowd – Sean Stewart 11. Express Yourself – Black Eyed Peas ft. Apl de Ap 12. My Life – Slumber Party Girls 13. Go Go – Jibbs 14. It Doesn’t Get Better Than This – Alex Band 15. Saying Goodbye – Matt White 16. Invisible – Ashlee Simpson 17. Alter Ego – Clique Girlz 18. Tell Me – Dropping Daylight 19. If This Is – Lifehouse 20. Fabulous – Chelsea Staub in the role of “Meredith”


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He said the Basij would be deployed to provide “order and security.” It was the latest nod by the ruling clerics that the Basij is moving deeper into the fold

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The motion passed easily, according to pro-government Web sites.

And with it, Iranian authorities took another step in restructuring the state to reward the forces that help keep them in power – handing wider decision-making roles to the formidable Revolutionary Guard and its vast paramilitary network that have led the crackdowns against opposition protesters.

The Revolutionary Guard has always been a centerpiece of Iran’s Islamic establishment. But the latest door opened to its militia wing suggests a deepening policy role by Iran’s most hard-line groups as opposition forces grow bolder in their demands and the West considers tighter sanctions over its nuclear impasse with Tehran.

The Basij will again be out in force Thursday for expected protest marches to coincide with events marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Their attempts to crush the anti-government movement have been well documented since Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election last June, including the trademark Basiji motorcycle charges in protest crowds.

What’s perhaps less noticed – but with even deeper significance – is the evolving role of the huge Basij force from loosely organized Islamic vigilantes to a more cohesive force with increasing channels to Iran’s leadership and security apparatus.

“It’s clear that the Revolutionary Guard has been increasingly inserted in Iran’s decision-making equation during the crisis,” said Patrick Clawson, deputy director at the Washington Institute for 천안 안마 Near East Policy. “Expanding the role of the Basij is a natural extension of this.”

The Basij’s big brother, the Revolutionary Guard, has long been a pillar of Iran’s regime as a force separate from the ordinary armed forces. The Guard now has a hand in every critical area including missile development, oil resources, dam building, road construction, telecommunications and nuclear technology.

It also has absorbed the paramilitary Basij as a full-fledged part of its command structure – giving the militia greater funding and a stronger presence in Iran’s internal politics.

The chief of the Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, often accuses dissidents of waging a “soft revolution” against the Islamic system and says forces such as the Basij are needed more than ever to quash internal threats.

The Basij has its roots as volunteer fighters during the 1980-88 war with Iraq. It then developed as a grass-roots defender of the system – taking on roles such as Islamic morality police at checkpoints and parks or as shock troops busting up pro-reform gatherings or publications.

Iran’s meltdown since June has made the Basij into a front-line force against the opposition.

Security forces turned to them as neighbor-by-neighbor informants with hundreds of thousands of eyes and ears in every corner of the country. They also became a first-call attack squad against protests, often roaring into battle on motorcycles and armed with batons.

At least eight people were killed in clashes between security forces and protests in the last major opposition march in late December.

On Monday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed to deliver a “punch in the mouth” to opposition groups if they follow through with calls for marches on Thursday during state-run celebrations of the Islamic Revolution.

He said the Basij would be deployed to provide “order and security.”

It was the latest nod by the ruling clerics that the Basij is moving deeper into the fold.

At the late January Cabinet meeting, one of Ahmadinejad’s top advisers, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, made a speech praising the Basij before the vote to give the group an open invitation to get involved with decisions and policies in every ministry, according to Rajanews.com, a pro-Ahmadinejad Web site. The report also appeared in other government-allied sites as well as some opposition blogs.

Basij leaders also are reportedly asking for another budget increase for the next Iranian year that starts in late March. Last year, the Basij funding was boosted a staggering 200 percent to more than $500 million, according to Sobh-e Sadegh, a publication controlled by the Revolutionary Guard.

There has been no public pushback from authorities despite a severe fiscal crunch, which has brought unpopular measures such as plans to end government-subsidized gasoline prices.

No one in the embattled government wants to risk ruffling groups such as the Basij, which has remained among the strongest supporters of Ahmadinejad.

“They can serve almost as Ahmadinejad’s private army,” said William O. Beeman, a University of Minnesota professor who has written on Iranian affairs.

The higher political profile for the Basij also appears to fit into efforts to expand hard-line oversight in schools and universities. The Basij have been increasingly active in recruitment as the political tensions grow.

Precise numbers on Basij membership are not published, but some estimates range as high as 1 million or more.

“If they acquire more power as a body, they will be able to recruit more forces who will see this as an instant route toward social mobility and power,” said Beeman.


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For months, Western officials have privately complained about an inadequate push by Islamabad against members of the network of notorious Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani

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Commenting on a report published earlier today in The New York Times, 전주 마사지 the Pakistani official confirmed the offer made by General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani (Pakistan’s army chief of staff) during a visit last month to NATO headquarters in Belgium.

(Left: Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani presides at a meeting of top military commanders in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in this October 2009 file photo.)


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Dina Lohan, who was accompanied by her mother, Ann Sullivan, was hardly impressed with her ex-husband’s olive branch

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He had previously suggested that Dina Lohan’s drinking and his own drug use may have contributed to the substance abuse problems currently plaguing their daughter, the star of “Mean Girls” and other movies.

Last week, Lindsay Lohan, 21, was arrested for investigation of misdemeanor driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license and felony cocaine possession. She was released on bail and insisted in an e-mail to an entertainment reporter that she was innocent of the allegations, which came just two weeks after she was released from her second stint in rehab this year.

As was the case on Friday, when the Lohans appeared in divorce court in nearby Mineola, a phalanx of entertainment reporters and camera crews converged on the Family Court complex on Monday, hoping for any snippet of Lindsay news; neither parent provided any substantive update on their daughter.

Lohan is doing “everything he possibly can to reunite with his children,” his attorney, 부산 안마 John DiMascio Jr., said after the brief court proceeding.

DiMascio declined to comment specifically on the reason for withdrawing the request for drug testing, but Lohan said he felt the move would improve his chances of being granted visitation rights with his children.

Lohan currently is permitted only telephone calls with his daughter Aliana, 13, and her brother, Dakota, 10. Because Lindsay and her brother Michael Lohan Jr., 19, are no longer minors, they are not subject to the edicts of Family Court.

Dina Lohan, who was accompanied by her mother, Ann Sullivan, was hardly impressed with her ex-husband’s olive branch.

“There never should have been an order,” she told reporters who swarmed her as she walked to her car in the courthouse parking lot.

Family Court Judge Stacy D. Bennett said she is still awaiting the results of a review by a family therapist; that is due Sept. 6. In the meantime, the judge repeated a previous admonition for the couple “not to make disparaging comments in the presence of the children.”

The Lohans are due back in divorce court on Aug. 10.By Frank Eltman


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On Tuesday, he announced a $2.5 million fund to help residents get back on their feet.  On Wednesday, he announced he’ll return in the lead role in “Hamilton” for a three-week run at the University of Puerto Rico in January 2019

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One of the biggest names in musical theater — the star and creator of “Hamilton” — has plunged right into his NEXT ACT. It’s in a place a long way from Broadway, but very close to his heart, as David Begnaud shows us: 

As the creator and star of the Broadway sensation, “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda is used to getting mobbed by adoring crowds. But the crowds that greeted him a few days ago in Puerto Rico were different. They weren’t there just to applaud him they wanted to thank him.

What is Miranda’s biggest concern about the island? “It’s still the immediate needs of the hardest-hit towns. It’s those towns in the mountains, and the hardest-hit towns that we are still struggling to get aid to.”

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is still reeling. Fifty-three days later, much of the island remains without power and running water. Many roads and bridges are still out.  

Since the storm, the 37-year-old Miranda has been using his voice, and his fame, to sound the alarm.

Begnaud asked, “What is expected of you, as a Puerto Rican?”

“Well, it’s complicated, because I didn’t grow up here, so it’s this weird mix of I will do anything to support the island, but I also don’t for a second pretend I know what’s best for the island, because I don’t live here,” he replied. “My job is to amplify the concerns of Puerto Rico.”

While Miranda wasn’t born on the island, his parents were, and Lin-Manuel spent summers as a child visiting his grandparents in Vega Alta, outside San Juan.

“They were such a constant in my life,” he said. “They never missed a play. They’d fly to New York to come see me in the school play. I think of them so much.”

He walked through what was left of his grandparents’ home. “They bought this property and the only thing that was here was the porch. And they built the house around that,” he said. 

Here, as on much of the island, there is little left. 

“The porch has survived, has survived them, and has survived this hurricane. Is there a better metaphor for what Puerto Rico is going through than this footprint?” Miranda said. “We have to start from scratch. But we have this footprint. 

“The metaphor is, you know, 대전 안마 Hurricane Maria just wiped us out, but this footprint is still here, this porch is still here, and we are still here,” he said. “And as long as we’re still here and we are trying, we’re gonna rebuild this house. And we’re going to rebuild it with solar panels on top. The metaphor is we have an opportunity in the wake of tragedy to rebuild, and rebuild smarter, and rebuild better. And that’s the hope with this house, and that’s the hope with our island.”  

The day after Maria hit, Miranda did what he does best: he wrote a song, “Almost Like Praying,” inspired by “Maria,” from “West Side Story,” to raise money to help the devastated island. He rounded up some of the world’s biggest Latino stars — from J-Lo to Rita Moreno — to perform:

Released on October 6, it hit #1 on iTunes in 17 countries. All the profits go to a fund to help the Caribbean island recover.

“Through the Hispanic Federation, not even including ‘Almost Like Praying,’ we’ve raised just shy of $20 million,” Miranda said.

“How much money has the song alone brought in?” asked Begnaud.

“I don’t know yet! You know, I know that we’ve sold over 150,000 copies on iTunes. That’s $1.29 each. So that’s minimum $150,000.”

But as he was finishing the song, Miranda got caught up in a controversy on Twitter war with President Trump:

The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump.

You’re going straight to hell, @realDonaldTrump. No long lines for you. Someone will say, “Right this way, sir.”They’ll clear a path. https://t.co/xXfJH0KJmw

“Any regrets?” asked Begnaud.

“No. Those were the only words I had on the occasion,” Miranda laughed. “You know, disasters are moments when leaders unite us, you know? They’re no one’s fault, and he starts attacking people on the front lines.”

Last week, Miranda hop-scotched the island, an unofficial goodwill ambassador. In Isla Verde, he made sandwiches at a relief kitchen. He was moved to tears from the welcome he received with his parents, Luis and Luz, looking on.

Begnaud said, “I thought of the two of you as I watched you walk around the island right behind him today. The pride a parent must feel to watch their son give such honor to the place where they’re all from.”

“And that people are so proud of him,” said Luis. “That’s, you know, in my town they remember him when he was a little boy. And that pride that you see — you made us proud of who you are.”

Miranda then visited an aid distribution center in San Juan, where he met with the mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz.

Begnaud asked her, “When he comes here, what does it do?”

“It’s a boost,” Cruz replied, “and it brings joy to people’s hearts.”

When he wasn’t making friends, he was making headlines. On Tuesday, he announced a $2.5 million fund to help residents get back on their feet. 

On Wednesday, he announced he’ll return in the lead role in “Hamilton” for a three-week run at the University of Puerto Rico in January 2019.

“It’s weird; just yesterday the Smithsonian announced that I donated my act two costume to the Smithsonian. I need it back!” he laughed.  “Just three weeks!”

“Aren’t you too young to be donating things to the Smithsonian?” Begnaud laughed.

“Well, yeah, I think so too.”

Thousands of tickets will be sold for just $10, though more expensive travel packages will be offered for sale to help bring tourism back to this home away from home.

Celebrated for his musical about the immigrant who became a founding father, Lin-Manuel Miranda has found his next act.

“Puerto Rico will come back stronger,” he replied. “I have nothing but faith in the character and the resilience and the brilliance of the Puerto Rican people. If they’re given a fair shot to come back, we’ll have an even better Puerto Rico than before.”

For the man who achieved fame and fortune through his musical about an immigrant who became a founding father, Lin-Manuel Miranda says giving back is the least he can do…

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The Obama White House wants to impose fresh international sanctions over Tehran’s failure to prove its nuclear program is peaceful

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The Treasury Department said it was targeting one person and four companies for penalties over their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction. The agency said it was freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction firm that he runs.

The sanctions made public Wednesday expand existing U.S. unilateral penalties against elements of the Guard Corps, or IRGC, which Western intelligence officials believe is spearheading Iran’s nuclear program.

The announcement came as U.S. officials lobby for action at the U.N. Security Council, which has already hit Iran with three sets of sanctions. The Obama White House wants to impose fresh international sanctions over Tehran’s failure to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.

Qasemi commands the Guard Corps’ Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, which Treasury described as its engineering arm that is involved in the construction of streets, tunnels, waterworks, agricultural projects and pipelines. Its profits “are available to support the full range of the IRGC’s illicit activities, including WMD proliferation and support for terrorism,” Treasury said in a statement.

Khatam al-Anbiya was hit with U.S. sanctions by the Bush administration in 2007. Wednesday’s penalties apply to Qasemi and Khatam al-Anbiya subsidiaries, the Fater Engineering Institute, the Imensazen Consultant Engineers Institute, the Makin Institute and 대구 마사지 the Rahab Institute.

“As the IRGC consolidates control over broad swaths of the Iranian economy, displacing ordinary Iranian businessmen in favor of a select group of insiders, it is hiding behind companies like Khatam al-Anbiya and its affiliates to maintain vital ties to the outside world,” said Stuart Levey, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“Today’s action exposing Khatam al-Anbiya subsidiaries will help firms worldwide avoid business that ultimately benefits the IRGC and its dangerous activities,” he said.

Treasury’s move followed a tough new warning to Iran from President Barack Obama, who said on Tuesday that the country remains on an “unacceptable” path to nuclear weapons, despite its denials, and that the U.S. and like-minded countries would soon present a set of punishing sanctions at the United Nations.

His comments came in response to Iran’s announcement that it was rejecting a deal it provisionally accepted in October under which it would ship low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enriching for use in a Tehran medical research reactor. On Sunday, Iran said it would would produce its own higher-enriched uranium. On Tuesday, Iranian state television said the process began in the presence of inspectors from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog.

Mr. Obama said he was sticking to a two-track approach: offering to negotiate, while threatening further pressure. He said the world would welcome an Iranian decision to accept U.N. demands that it live up to its nuclear control obligations.

“And if not, then the next step is sanctions,” he said. “They have made their choice so far, although the door is still open. And what we are going to be working on over the next several weeks is developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they are from the international community as a whole.”

Mr. Obama said that work to broaden the U.N.’s sanctions was moving quickly, but he gave no specific timeline for the presentation of a new resolution. Russia, a traditional opponent of sanctions, appears ready to support new penalties. But another of the council’s five permanent, veto-wielding members, China, which has increasingly close economic ties to Iran, can block a resolution by itself. China has said the time is not yet right for fresh sanctions.


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Witnesses say the company provided little information to visitors stuck on the 124th floor observation deck as rescue crews worked

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천안 셔츠룸 & 풀싸롱 o1o 5811 4995 추천합니다Visitors who were on the viewing floor at the time of Saturday’s incident told The Associated Press they heard a loud noise, then saw what looked like smoke but turned out to be dust seeping out of the crack in one of the elevator doors.

“It almost sounded like a small explosion. It was a really loud bang,” said Michael Timms, 31, an American telecommunications engineer who lives in Dubai and was visiting the tower with his cousin Michele Moscato.

About 45 minutes later, rescue crews arrived and pried open the elevator door, Timms said. The faulty elevator was caught between floors, so rescuers hoisted a ladder into the shaft to help those trapped inside get out.

Abu Naseer, a spokesman for Dubai’s civil defense department, confirmed the incident. He said the call for help came in around 6:20 p.m. Saturday evening.

Emergency crews used another elevator to reach the observation deck and were able to rescue all 15 people stuck inside the faulty elevator unharmed, he said.

Photos: World’s Tallest Building Opens

The 2,717-foot building’s owner, Emaar Properties, has revealed few details about the incident since closing the observation deck indefinitely.

In a brief statement Monday, the company said the viewing platform was temporarily shut for “maintenance and upgrade” because of “unexpected high traffic.” It also hinted at electrical problems, saying “technical issues with the power supply are being worked on by the main and subcontractors.”

Emaar has made no mention of problems with the elevators. That angers some involved in the incident.

“What just kind of shocks me is that they were going to brush this under the rug to save face. If it broke, at least tell people it broke,” Timms said.

The company has not responded to specific questions about the incident or made anyone available to speak despite repeated requests by the AP.

Witnesses say the company provided little information to visitors stuck on the 124th floor observation deck as rescue crews worked. That lack of information caused panic among some visitors.

“I was really starting to get upset, getting really nervous,” said Moscato, 29, a nurse visiting from Columbia, South Carolina. “I started crying.”

She said she and Timms asked to use the stairs because they felt uncomfortable taking the elevator back down, but were told that was not allowed.

They, 강남 마사지 the people trapped in the elevator and an estimated 60 other visitors on the observation deck were eventually taken down in a freight elevator not normally used by the public, they said.

It remains unclear what exactly caused the elevator to fail.

Moscato said she spoke with a man, whose name she did not know, after he escaped from the elevator who said the lights went off and the elevator began to fall before the brakes kicked in. It was not possible to independently verify the account.

The $1.5 billion Burj Khalifa opened with fireworks and other festivities in a widely televised celebration on Jan. 4 after a series of delays.

It boasts more than 160 stories, but the exact number is not known. The tapering, silvery tower ranks not only as the highest building but also as the tallest freestanding structure in the world.

The observation deck, which is mostly enclosed but includes an outdoor terrace bordered by guard rails, is located about two-thirds of the way up on the 124th floor.

By AP Business Writer Adam Schreck


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