DETROIT– Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden and rival Kamala Harris battled over healthcare and came under attack from other candidates on their criminal justice records in a contentious and sometimes angry debate yesterday.

On the second of back-to-back nights of debates among Democrats seeking the chance to face Republi-can President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election, Biden and Harris were at the center of a growing fight over healthcare that has split the Democratic Party and dominated the first candidate encounter in Detroit on Tuesday.

Biden, who struck a sharper and more aggressive tone than in the first debate, ridiculed Harris’ contention that her recently unveiled healthcare plan would not require a middle-class tax increase or eliminate private insurance plans. “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan,” Biden told Harris. “The plan no matter how you cut it costs $3 trillion. It will require middle-class taxes to go up, not down. Thirdly, it will eliminate employer-based insurance.”

Harris rejected Biden’s description as “simply inaccurate” and ripped into his proposal to build on former President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan, popularly known as Obama-care, and include a government-run option, saying it would leave millions uninsured.(Reuters)…[+]

A ma­jor boost in the po­lice’s an­ti-crime ar­se­nal is ex­pect­ed to un­fold fol­low­ing Wednes­day night’s pas­sage of the Bail (Amend­ment) Bill which was sur­pris­ing­ly sup­port­ed by the Op­po­si­tion. Both sides from the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives came to­geth­er in a rare show of uni­ty to pass the leg­is­la­tion. It was passed around 7.25 pm by a to­tal of 32 votes — 22 Gov­ern­ment MPs and 10 UNC MPs present.

The pos­i­tive out­come came dur­ing the fi­nal stage of Wednes­day’s spe­cial Par­lia­ment sit­ting to de­bate the bill – and af­ter sev­er­al days of lob­by­ing by Gov­ern­ment to sway pub­lic sup­port. The gov­ern­ment had called Par­lia­ment out of re­cess to de­bate the bill.

At the height of the re­cent crime cri­sis, the Po­lice Ser­vice had re­quest­ed the sev­en clause bill to lock away re­peat of­fend­ers blamed for the sud­den spike in gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders. The pro­vi­sion of the leg­is­la­tion re­stricts bail for 120 days if some­one has a con­vic­tion for se­ri­ous of­fences and is charged for one of them again. Bail will al­so be re­strict­ed if some­one is charged for a se­ri­ous of­fence, is out on bail and gets charged for the same cat­e­go­ry of of­fence.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the army to help tackle massive wildfires raging in Siberia and other regions in the east. The decision was taken after Mr Putin was briefed on the growing crisis by the head of the emergencies ministry. About three million hectares (7.4 million acres) have been affected, in what Greenpeace is describing as an “ecological catastrophe”.

Many local residents say not enough is being done to tackle the fires. More than 700,000 people have signed a petition calling for tougher action and for an emergency to be declared across the vast Siberia region. There has been widespread anger after comments by emergencies officials that they are not planning to tackle wildfires in remote uninhabited areas because there is no direct threat to people.

On Wednesday, President Putin ordered service personnel of the defence ministry to join in the firefighting efforts in Siberia. Ten planes and 10 helicopters with firefighting equipment are being deployed in the region. A state of emergency was earlier declared in the Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk regions, two areas of the Republic of Buryatia and one area of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

On Wednesday Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev flew in to Krasnoyarsk city to chair a crisis meeting with local officials. “The most important task is to prevent the fire from spreading to populated areas,” he said. He said everything had to be done to avoid a wildfire disaster like the one that hit Russia in 2010, when “practically the whole country was burning, and there were dozens of dead”.(BBC)…[+]

DAR ES SALAAM – Tanzanian police said yesterday they had arrested a prominent investigative journalist and were looking into his citizenship in another case triggering concern over press freedom under President John Magufuli’s rule.

Erick Kabendera’s detention on Monday, by about half a dozen plainclothes police at his home on the outskirts of the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, came despite a 2013 government probe concluding his citizenship was not an issue. The city’s police chief Lazaro Mambosasa said the journalist was arrested after refusing to heed a summons.

“Kabendera has not been abducted … he has been arrested by the Tanzania Police Force as part of an investigation into his citizenship,” he told reporters. “He is in safe hands.” Police were working with the Immigration Department and would likely file criminal charges after the investigation, Mombosasa said, without giving more details.Police sources said Kabendera’s family allegedly originated from a neighbouring country and he did not follow proper procedures for naturalisation.(Reuters)…[+]

HAVANA– Communist-run Cuba yesterday imposed sweeping price controls on all state and private businesses as it battles a deepening economic crisis and mounting U.S. sanctions. Resolutions published in the official gazette banned all retail and wholesale price increases except for products imported and distributed by the state where already-set profit margins cannot be increased.

“In effect they have suspended what there is of a market,” a Cuban economist said, asking not to be identified due to restrictions on talking to foreign journalists.

While state-run companies dominate the economy, reforms in recent years have led to a growing private sector of cooperatives, farmers, small businesses and self-employed individuals who, for example, work in the skilled trades or drive taxis, and in general operate on a market basis. Resolution 302 of the Finances and Prices Ministry lists all actors in what is called the non-state sector, saying that they “cannot increase current prices and tariffs of products and services.”(Reuters)…[+]

Greta Thunberg is to sail across the Atlantic in a high-speed racing yacht next month to attend UN climate summits in the US and Chile as part of a sabbatical year the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist will spend in the US.

“Good news! I’ll be joining the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, COP25 in Santiago … I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II. We’ll be sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to NYC in mid August,” Greta tweeted. The journey will take two weeks.

The campaigner, whose solo protest last year sparked the Fridays for Future global school climate strike movement, said in June she would be taking a year off school to attend the summits, on 23 September in New York and 2-13 December in Santiago, which she described as “pretty much where our future will be decided”.

But she said she did not yet know how she was going to get there. “It’s on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean,” she said. “And there are no trains going there. And since I don’t fly, because of the enormous climate impact of aviation, it’s going to be a challenge.”(The Guardian)…[+]

GILROY, Calif– Police were searching today for a suspected accomplice of the gunman who killed three people, including a 6-year-old boy, in a mass shooting at a food festival in California. The gunman was shot dead by police officers within minutes of opening fire early on Sunday evening at the three-day Gilroy Garlic Festival, about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of the city of San Jose.

Among those killed was a 6-year-old boy, according to news reports. Fifteen people were injured, but it was unclear how many were shot or otherwise hurt in the crush of bystanders trying to flee, according to police. One person was in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. A second suspect “was involved in some way, we just don’t know in what way,” Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said late on Sunday, without giving further details.

“We have no idea of a motive,” he said. Police recovered a rifle at the scene, Smithee said. The gunman, who has not been publicly identified, cut through a fence to evade metal detectors and other security at the festival’s entrance, police said.(Reuters)…[+]

A man who broke into his wife’s home and stole more than $5,000 in items has been sent to prison. Naindra Ramdath, 36, of Golconda, was jailed for 14 months for the offence of housebreaking and larceny. He said his drug problem led to him committing the offence.

Police prosecutor Ramdath Phillip told the San Fernando court it was around 4.30 p.m. on June 28 that Sandra Boodoo locked and secured her Golconda home. She returned two hours later to find the house broken into and two gold and diamond rings, a grinder, steel rims and a radiator fan missing. The items together cost $5,200. Camera footage showed Ramdath used a ladder to access a window, which he opened and gained entry into the house. He was seen lea­ving with some of the items. Around 12.30 a.m. yester­day, Ramdath was spotted sitting at the side of the road and PC Emrith told him of the report of housebreaking and larceny.(Trinidad Express)…[+]

WASHINGTON – The United States imposed sanctions yesterday on 10 people and 13 groups in a Venezuelan food subsidy scheme the U.S. Treasury said lined the pockets of President Nicolas Maduro, his stepsons and others as ordinary Venezuelans suffer food shortages.

The Treasury Department said Colombian national Alex Nain Saab orchestrated a vast corruption network for food imports and distribution in Venezuela and profited from overvalued contracts, including the food subsidy programme. Saab bribed Maduro’s three stepsons to win no-bid, overvalued government contracts, said Sigal Mandelker, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“Alex Saab engaged with Maduro insiders to run a wide-scale corruption network they callously used to exploit Venezuela’s starving population,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “Treasury is targeting those behind Maduro’s sophisticated corruption schemes, as well as the global network of shell companies that profit from” the country’s military-controlled food distribution program, he said. (Reuters)…[+]

GENEVA– The hot air that smashed European weather records this week looks set to move towards Greenland and could cause record melting of the world’s second largest ice sheet, the United Nations said today.

Clare Nullis, spokeswoman for the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, said the hot air moving up from North Africa had not merely broken European temperature records on Thursday but surpassed them by 2, 3 or 4 degrees Celsius, which she described as “absolutely incredible”. “According to forecasts, and this is of concern, the atmospheric flow is now going to transport that heat towards Greenland,” she told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva.

“This will result in high temperatures and consequently enhanced melting of the Greenland ice sheet,” she said. “We don’t know yet whether it will beat the 2012 level, but it’s close.” Nullis cited data from Denmark’s Polar Portal, which measures the daily gains and losses in surface mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

“In July alone, it lost 160 billion tonnes of ice through surface melting. That’s roughly the equivalent of 64 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. Just in July. Just surface melt – it’s not including ocean melt as well.” The Greenland Ice Sheet covers 80% of the island and has developed over many thousands of years, with layers of snow compressed into ice. The dome of ice rises to a height of 3,000 meters and the total volume of the ice sheet is approximately 2,900,000 cubic kilometres, which would raise global sea levels by 7 metres if it melted entirely, according to the Polar Portal website. (Reuters)…[+]