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Home » Europe » Pensioner who stabbed wife spared jail over failing to comply with tag
Pensioner who stabbed wife spared jail over failing to comply with tag
Edward Turpin has been spared jail time after being called back to court for refusing to wear an electronic tag. The 90-year-old was handed two years imprisonment suspended for two years earlier this year after stabbing his wife, Joan Turpin, also 90, in the chest four times. Turpin attacked his wife at their home in Orpington, south-east London, after nearly 70 years of marriage, saying he "couldn't take it anymore".
Mrs Turpin recorded a video while she was in hospital detailing what happened to her.
She said: "He woke me up with the knife in my chest, telling me he couldn't take any more.
"It made him ill and then the knife went in. I was screaming for help."
Upon sentencing, Turpin was also handed an electronically monitored curfew between 9pm and 7am for three months.
But prosecutor Alistair Richardson told the Old Bailey a number of attempts had been made to install the tag.
Mr Richardson said the first two had been at 10.48pm and 11.48pm and Turpin did not answer the door.
Following that his niece requested a daytime appointment but Turpin refused to have the equipment installed.
Mr Richardson said that because there had been a breach of the suspended sentence the court must activate the prison sentence unless it would be unjust to do so.
Simon Gledhill, mitigating told the court that the late-night attempts had been "traumatic" for Turpin.
Judge Alexia Durran spared Turpin saying sending him to prison would be "unjust".
Judge Durran told the defendant: "There may have been some confusion about what the order was and I can well understand why you were distressed by people arriving very late at night, it's not nice for anybody and particularly for someone of your age.
"Strictly speaking I am meant to send you to prison today because you have not complied with the order I have made.
"I don't want to do that Mr Turpin. I am persuaded it would be unjust to send you to prison today, but you have to comply and if you don't I have to send you to prison."
She added that it is "important" Turpin comply and let them install the tag, extending the order to three months and seven days.
Following the attack on his wife Turpin called the emergency services and said: 'I can't take any more of it…she's been ill and it's got right on top of me.'
He denied it and was cleared of attempted murder and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
He was convicted of unlawful wounding.
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Sat Apr 1
Rahsaan Patterson: Celebrating the Debut Album 26th Anniversary
Sat, April 1
8PM / $69 - $89 Get Tickets
Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club
Music was Rahsaan Patterson's destiny when he was named after jazz great Rahsaan Roland Kirk then as a child became a star on the television show Kids Incorporated appearing with future music stars Shanice and Fergie. Patterson began his music career behind the scenes writing songs for Brandy as well as session work as a backup singer for other well known artists. By the time he sought a record deal on his own, there was a near bidding war over him by record labels which MCA won and released Patterson's self-titled debut in 1997. Featuring Patterson's magnificent voice, the album was simultaneously retro and fresh the way Neo-Soul was always supposed to be. Patterson has an impressive range and control that few male vocalists can match from soaring falsetto to funky tenor-bass to operatic alto.
Patterson's music made it to urban adult radio garnering a truly loyal following with the popular single "Where You Are" still a favorite at his performances. His sophomore album "Love in Stereo" arrived in 1999 with a much more up-tempo sound and some of the freshest vocal arrangements heard in years. The songwriting was more personal as well, humanizing Patterson to fans by inviting them into a cerebral and complex man's mind and world. His future albums also featured exquisite singing, songwriting, arrangements and productions that have endeared Patterson to music lovers who appreciate an artist as pure and authentic as he is. Patterson is also known for his thrilling and inspiring live performances where he displays his amazing vocal range and control for a concert experience reflecting the best of Neo-Soul.
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Sighed a relief
US$15 billion bailout package a stimulus to economic recovery
Given the severe impact of COVID-19, the National Assembly's recent approval of a VND350 trillion (US$15 billion) economic recovery package is considered by businesses and experts as an extremely important leverage and motivation moving forward. Businesses long for the US$15 billion bailout package to be soon disbursed to support their ailing operation. Businesses expect early disbursement Luu Ngoc Nam, the owner of a firm specialising in food, industrial catering, transportation, and warehousing in Hanoi, said that his businesses has almost been exhausted because of COVID-19. But he felt more motivated upon hearing that the national legislature has just approved a VND350 trillion economic recovery package. "We are very pleased and hopeful that conditions for accessing this package will be easier. The State should create favourable conditions for businesses like us to get support in a quick and effective manner," said Nam. Similarly, Nguyen Anh Tu, director of … [Read more...] about US$15 billion bailout package a stimulus to economic recovery
Filed Under: business Economic recovery package, bailout package, vietnam economy, business news, vietnamnet bridge, english news, Vietnam news, vietnamnet news, Vietnam latest news, ..., austerity vs stimulus the political future of economic recovery, 15 billion rescission package, ramaphosa economic stimulus package, 15 billion airline bailout
January 17, 2022 by tuoitrenews.vn Leave a Comment
Australia and New Zealand dispatched surveillance flights on Monday to assess the damage in Tonga, isolated from the rest of the world due to the eruption of an underwater volcano that triggered a tsunami and blanketed the Pacific island with ash. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged to provide support for Tonga as early as possible but said the volcano ash had hampered relief efforts. "There's been a lot of challenges there with the ash cloud and the disruption to communications and so we are working together to get as much support to Tonga as we possibly can," Morrison told radio station 2GB on Monday. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology told Reuters in an emailed statement on Monday there was "no current volcanic activity, and the volcano is not spewing ash". It said ash that had reached the Australian state of Queensland was from a previous eruption. Australia's Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja said initial reports suggested no mass casualties and that … [Read more...] about Australia, New Zealand step up efforts to aid tsunami-hit Tonga
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Home India 13 more deaths due to corona virus infection, 699 newly infected found...
13 more deaths due to corona virus infection, 699 newly infected found in Uttar Pradesh – 13 more deaths due to corona virus infection in Uttar Pradesh, 699 new found
Currently, 11,134 people are being treated for Kovid-19 in the state. (Token picture)
Lucknow:
in Uttar Pradesh Corona virus infection After 13 more deaths from Corona virus infection, the number of infected people has increased to 8,495, while the number of infected people has reached 5,93,171 after the arrival of 699 new ones. According to the Health Bulletin released on Sunday, 699 new infected were found within the last 24 hours, while 769 infected were sent home after treatment. So far, 5,73,542 corona infected have become healthy. According to the bulletin, 11,134 people are currently being treated for Kovid-19 in the state.
18,645 new cases of COVID-19 registered in last 24 hours in India, more than 200 died
More than 1.38 lakh samples were tested on Saturday whereas more than 2.53 crore samples have been tested so far. According to the bulletin, within the last 24 hours, one infected person has died in two districts in Lucknow, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Meerut, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, Kheri, Maharajganj, Fatehpur and Banda etc. and in the same period, Lucknow has the highest number of 165, Meerut. 49 and 30 have been found infected in Varanasi.
Video: The laborer died in the vaccine trial, the government submitted a committee report in a hurry
(This news has not been edited by the NewsBust team. It is published directly from the Syndicate feed.)
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17,072 beneficiaries vaccinated on day 2, Total adverse events so far 447, says Health...
Corona Vaccination: Immunization program carried out in six states on the second daynew Delhi: More than 17000 people have been vaccinated in 6 states...
17,072 beneficiaries vaccinated on day 2, Total adverse events so far...


It is with this in mind that we thought it would be a great idea to highlight the top 3 FAQs within our unique industry.
Question 1: How do you manufacture your cleanroom molding?
A: For years, it was common practice to make the molding for cleanrooms under regular manufacturing conditions. However recently there has been a big push to create them under much more stringently controlled environments. Thanks to our new solid walled clean room with injection molding machines, that is what we do at BMP.
Question 2: How important is process monitoring?
A: The short answer? Very.
The longer answer is that we have found that many of today's parts have extremely tight specifications, so there is a much larger need for process monitoring. State-of-the art sensors are at the heart of monitoring the molding process; they not only produce a better product but also create very low levels of rejects. BMP incorporates all the latest monitoring systems in our tool building.
Question 3: Scalability…do you have it?
A: No one plans a business to stay one size forever, so it is only natural that companies within our industry are always concerned about scalability. They might be only making a small amount of certain product now, but they want to know you have the ability to grow along with them with no downtime. BMP's customers are covered thanks to our recently updated plant, which includes, two overhead cranes for our mold changes, and two new air-handling units that allow us better control of the overall environment.
We hope that we have shone a bright light not only on the biggest issues in our industry but on also how BMP is in a great position to turn questions into answers!


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Inside Rodrigo Duterte's raging war on drugs
In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs rages on, its death toll of 8,000 dwarfed only by the estimated million more condemned by the president's 'kill lists'. GQ reports from Manila, a city caught in the crossfire of state-sponsored hits, where an indiscriminate death row has thousands of the accused living in perpetual fear of an assassin's bullet
By Jonathan Miller
Raphael is on the run. He is a softly spoken, middle-aged man of wiry build – and he is wired. The friend who put me in contact with him said that Raphael had been in this hyper-adrenalised state for months, ever since he had learned he was on the police "watch list". A local councillor had casually asked him to pop down to the police station one day and, when he complied, he realised he had inadvertently "surrendered". Now, like more than one million other Filipinos, Raphael is on the "kill list" database. Being on it doesn't necessarily mean he will be taken out, but the chance is always there.
"But if I've been killed by the time this comes out, feel free to use my real name," he told me with gallows humour. This was a man spending his life glancing over one shoulder and listening out for motorbikes.
Assassins wear a smoked-visor helmet over a black balaclava. They wear black T-shirts, black jeans, the barrel of an unholstered Colt 45 "Duterte pistol" [in 2017, the Philippine president distributed 3,000 guns to his armed forces] jammed into the pillion's belt. This is the uniform of the Philippine army of freelance executioners tasked with interpreting the dog whistles of their godfather-president. It's lucrative enough work – the going rate is rumoured to be at least £140 for a hit on an addict or local pusher, the money divvied up among the kill team. Each night's handiwork is faithfully reported in the media within a day or two, a paragraph here or there and then nothing. No investigation. No risk of getting caught.
Raphael was being monitored and didn't want me coming to his city, which he refused to even let me name. We decided to meet on neutral territory, in a crowded place. We ate well and had a couple of Red Horse beers to take the tension down a notch, though at no point did Raphael look relaxed. In better days he might have had a rakish charm. But these were not good days. He came with very strict conditions of total anonymity – Raphael is not his real name – which was a shame because, in real life, he is a compelling character with a colourful story.
He'd had it rough. Raphael grew up with his grandmother in Tondo, a sprawling Manila slum, before accidentally killing his violent, drunken uncle with a karate kick and then wisely moving far away. His aunt, possibly grateful for this intervention, had not pressed charges, although money did change hands. But the odds on Raphael having a long life himself had recently got a lot shorter. He had been informed by a couple of friendly police officers that his name was not only on the watch list, but also on the police high-value target (HVT) register, identifying him as a purveyor of methamphetamines and licensing the henchmen of the Fillipino president Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs to shoot to kill. He was now even more likely to be dispatched in one of the notoriously fatal buy-bust operations, with alleged dealers entrapped by police or liquidated by "vigilantes", who are actually off-duty officers.
"I lie awake at night. I don't know when they will come, but I know they will." - Raphael
Raphael had also come to discover that once his name was on a list it would stay there for as long as Duterte was president or for as long as Raphael survived.
Though in the "barangay" slums [a small administrative district] drugs watch lists predate Duterte's administration, he has used them to instil fear and to impose a paranoiac's version of social order. Despite a reported spike of more than 50 per cent in the national murder rate [according to figures from July to November 2016 vs the same period in 2015], Filipinos are said to feel safer with Duterte's nationwide "peace and order project" in full swing.
[Of the same time periods] the government has claimed there has been a 42 per cent drop in crimes such as carjacking and theft. The police have said the number of crimes overall has dropped by 30 per cent. The reality is that nearly eight out of ten adult Filipinos fear that they or someone they know will be taken out by the men in black on motorbikes.
These sinister riders bear Duterte branding, his grisly modus mortis. Some of the killings have been caught on CCTV and have occasionally been posted online. The grey, low-resolution clips run like silent snuff films, cold and brutal.
"How am I supposed to live like this?" Raphael asked.
He is no exception. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines have lived like this since the day Duterte was inaugurated in June 2016, having found themselves on one list or another.
Every single barangay, in every single town, in every single city, has drawn up watch lists and HVT lists and Duterte himself has a personal kill list, a voluminous sheaf of papers he brandishes during threat-laden after-dinner speeches. With two exceptions, the only other Filipinos I had knowingly encountered who had been on one of these lists were already dead by the time I set eyes on them.
President Rodrigo Duterte speaks at an event with the Filipino community in Hong Kong, 12 April 2018Getty Images
"I lie awake at night," said Raphael. "I don't know when they will come. But I know they will. Every time I hear a motorbike, every time my dog barks, I think it's them." He paused. The stress had placed unsustainable pressure on his relationship. He and his partner of 20 years no longer talked. His eldest son was a shabu (methamphetamine) user, he told me, and was also on the watch list, making the strain unbearable.
"I've done a lot of bad things in my life," he said, "but it's my son I'm worried for. I'm old. He's just 19. He is frightened. I'm used to living with danger, but he's not."
Raphael claimed that a local community leader bore a personal grudge against him and this was their revenge, it had nothing to do with drugs.
I had heard stories of how the drugs war was being used as a pretext for settling personal vendettas. In late 2017, the Philippine National Police (PNP) adopted a sinister new tactic: deploying public drop-boxes outside police stations into which anonymous informants could post the names of their neighbours in the hope they would be placed on drugs watch lists.
Raphael was insistent that although he'd once been involved in the drugs world, he had long ago left it behind. He hated shabu and hadn't smoked the stuff in 20 years. In the late Nineties, he had used it for two months, each time unable to sleep or eat for days on end. Finally, he said, he'd overdosed, nearly died and hadn't touched it since.
"I also didn't like to be around users unless they were really close friends," he said. "Even then they would turn into something I didn't recognise. They get paranoid when the high starts to wear off. And then they get violent."
The destructive, character-warping effects of crystal meth on users' personalities are matched in intensity only by the psychological and social damage it inflicts on those around them. As I sat questioning and cross-examining Raphael, it was clear to me that he was not a shabu junkie. Overwhelmed by feelings of his powerlessness, he had taken to self-medicating with Red Horse beer, he said, to counter what he called a well of "deep, black depression and rage".
Raphael said the number of people he knew who used shabu had increased dramatically over the previous decade. Many, like his own son, were teenagers and changed the mood in the barangay. "The kids are all stealing." And with the petty crime came violence.
Death sentences could be handed to enemies by adding names to list
In the early days, crystal meth was mostly coming in from China, dropped off at sea, off the Philippine coast, in plastic containers which Filipino drug lords and dealers would salvage and bring ashore. That was "the stuff that kept you awake for days". But, as the years went by, small labs began to spring up everywhere. The shabu was increasingly being locally produced, which meant the quality and potency decreased.
Scores of labs have been raided by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in recent years, with regular big busts since Duterte became president. By the end of the first year of the drugs war, police said they had dismantled nine labs and confiscated nearly 2,500kg of shabu with a street value of £174 million. The labs all contained the tell-tale equipment – drums and pressure tanks, tubes and packing facilities – familiar to anyone who's watched Breaking Bad.
The labs were and still are disguised as legitimate factories, hidden in warehouses, abandoned mines, remote poultry farms and inner-city apartments. Their discovery has almost always been accompanied by the arrest of Chinese nationals. In one case, police seized a floating shabu lab aboard a converted fishing boat in Subic Bay. Another was uncovered in a village piggery.
"Our barangay was considered a hotspot," Raphael said. "The number-one dealer is in my neighbourhood. He was selling drugs to my son, who started stealing from [us]."
Raphael was crippled by regret. Back in 2012, he told me, he had been arrested and charged with dealing drugs, but when his case came to court (after spending two-and-a-half years in prison on remand) he was acquitted. He conceded that he had, in fact, been an irregular, small-time dealer, but claimed to have stopped years ago for the sake of his family.
Ah, so he was a dealer, I surprised myself by thinking, as if Raphael's inclusion on two kill lists was somehow justified because of this. Of course, this is exactly what has happened in the minds of many Filipinos as killings have been normalised and Duterte's views have gone mainstream.
Raphael painted a bleak picture of his own drug-infested barangay, a place where neighbours spied on neighbours and where small disputes found lurid means of resolution. Drugs war drop-boxes began to appear at police stations for informants to post the names of suspects. If you had an influence, or could convince someone else who did, death sentences could be handed to your enemies simply by adding names to lists.
During the five hours I spent with him, Duterte's name came up frequently.
"Shit," he suddenly exclaimed, as though struck by the insanity of the situation he was in. "Duterte is crazy, man. Crazier than I am. He's a psychopath."
PDEA agents arrest an alleged dealer during a drug raid in Maharlika Village, 28 February 2018Getty Images
Whose name is on which list is common knowledge. List compilers are leaky, as are the police. The listed become socially toxic and are publicly ostracised. Months of stigma and exclusion generally precede violent death. Several listed individuals Raphael knew had already been shot dead.
The first to die in Raphael's barangay was a dealer he had known, who was killed on the very day of Duterte's inauguration. The man had served 20 years for murder and on his release in 2014 had set up as a shabu "distributor", as Raphael called him, and tried to recruit him as a dealer. Raphael said the man had been supplied by the police, who took most of the profit. The barangay sounded like a typical poor urban district. It could have been anywhere in the Philippines – a place where everyone knew everyone else, but where community spirit had been shattered by suspicion and consumed by fear since Duterte was elected president. Many, including children, had witnessed the regular street assassinations.
Raphael related two chilling encounters with masked men on motorbikes in detail, both right outside his house. Once, two men, who did not bother to remove their helmets or balaclavas, stopped in front of his house and asked for him by his full name. He saw his tenant talking to the men and pointing up. There was no avoiding it, so, heart in mouth, he had gone down.
The riders claimed to be working for a courier company, he said, although neither wore a uniform. To his horror, one reached into a sling bag strapped across his chest and went to pull out what Raphael was sure would be a pistol. The man hadn't pulled a gun, though. It had been an envelope, with a label identifying its sender as his aunt, who lives abroad. He hadn't been in contact with her for months. (And, no, it wasn't the same aunt whom he had inadvertently widowed years earlier.)
As Raphael showed proof of identity and scribbled his signature, he'd wondered whether he'd just signed his own death warrant, confirming for his would-be assassins that he was indeed their local HVT. Nervously, he made a joke of it and said to the riders, "I really thought I was going to die. I thought you were riding in tandem."
These brazen killings have severely eroded perceptions of justice in the Philippines
"When I explained," Raphael said, "they just laughed. Then they roared off."
The terror of the experience was written all over his face, even in the telling of the story. It had really spooked him.
As it turned out, the envelope contained a prepaid Visa card – a common means by which many Filipinos receive remittances from family members working overseas. "But when I tried to use it there was no money on it," he said. When he called his aunt to thank her for her "gift", she had no idea what he was talking about.
Raphael was required to sign in once a week at his local police station and attend lengthy state- and church-run drug-rehab programmes three afternoons a week. These "rehab" programmes involved addicts hooked on crystal meth attending lectures. There was no medication on offer, Raphael said, and no other form of psycho-social intervention. Narcotics Anonymous sessions took place every weeknight ("except they weren't anonymous") and in the community hall every Sunday afternoon. Missing even one of these sessions would be a problem. On completion of these compulsory programmes, it was promised that the names on the lists would be submitted to the city mayor and police chief for "delisting". It never happened. New requirements were always drawn up. No one was delisted. That was when Raphael realised he was on the lists for life.
I have remained in regular contact with Raphael. The good news is that, at the time of writing, I still have to use his pseudonym.
He has remained unable to get himself delisted, however. Finally, having toughed it out for a year, he recently messaged me to ask whether I could put him in contact with someone who could help him disappear. He wanted to go into hiding with his 19-year-old son, in the hope that one day their nightmare would be over. A nascent network, operating by word of mouth, had begun to provide sanctuary and protection for people who have found themselves on Duterte's death lists. But the safe houses, it turned out, were all full.
"There's no difference between today and how the SS operated." - Diokno
One Sunday evening, in a noisy café on the University Of The Philippines campus in Manila's Quezon City, I met Jose Manuel "Chel" Diokno, the country's best-known human rights lawyer and one of Duterte's most daringly outspoken critics.
Diokno has publicly disparaged the president's war on drugs, condemned the surge in extrajudicial killings and lamented the erosion of the rule of law. He is incensed by Duterte's murderous threats to human rights activists and lawyers. Diokno is also the dean of De La Salle University College Of Law and has discovered a thing or two about Duterte's lists.
"When he was mayor of Davao, Duterte didn't keep his lists a secret. And if you look at how his government is conducting its drugs war now, it's based on these watch lists. There is no difference between what is happening here today and how the Japanese operated, with their Secret Police or how the SS operated in Nazi Germany," he said, fixing me with a steady, solemn glare over the rims of his glasses. "The more I see, the more disgusted I am."
Diokno chairs the Free Legal Assistance Group (Flag), which for years has handled cases dating back to martial law under Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, as well as those linked to Duterte's kill squads. Diokno's late father, Jose "Ka Pepe" Diokno, also a distinguished human rights lawyer as well as a senator, was widely regarded as a legendary opponent of Marcos.
Police at the scene where an alleged drug dealer was shot dead, 23 March 2018Getty Images
When military rule was declared in 1972, Diokno senior was arrested without charge and held incommunicado in solitary confinement. The young Chel, who was in those days not even a teenager, spent two years not knowing if his father was alive. Ka Pepe founded Flag when he was released and, four decades on, his son is following in his footsteps.
Chel sipped his strong black coffee. He was well-versed in Duterte's patterns of behaviour. Now, he confirmed exactly what I'd heard from Raphael.
"There are several kinds of lists... Names on the typical watch list are supplied by local barangay officials... Then there are the HVT or 'wanted' lists. Those names come from the PDEA and PNP agents monitoring drug activities. I don't know it for a fact," he said, "but it's not beyond this government to compile a list of human rights activists and lawyers too. What I do know is that once your name is on a list it's pretty much impossible to get off it."
Diokno told me about two lawyers he knew, one in Mindanao and one in Luzon, who had sought to have their clients' names removed. The first had a transgender client who had gone to the lawyer with a drugs-test certificate to prove to the police that she was clean. They went to the PNP, he said, asking them to please remove her, but were told, "Sorry, the list is now at police HQ in Manila and we don't have the power."
In Luzon, it had been exactly the same story with another client. "Unless you know someone high up in the PNP or in Malacañang Palace [the president's official residence and primary workplace] it is impossible to get delisted."
Those who have managed to get themselves delisted are about as rare as survivors of tandem hits or police buy-bust operations.
Many of those killed in police buy-bust operations are known to have had falsified evidence planted on their bodies
In late September 2016, Duterte did something very out of character: he publicly apologised to a congressman and former provincial governor whom he had maligned as a named kingpin of what he'd called a "drugs matrix", which supposedly ran operations in and out of the country's biggest prison.
Unsurprisingly, Duterte's critic-in-chief, the senator Leila De Lima, who was named as "boss" of this drugs ring, received no such apology. But the president said he was "very sorry" to have implicated representative Amado Espino Jr and two other senior provincial officials in this supposed "matrix". He described this mistake as a "lapse" and conceded that "somehow we were negligent in counter-checking".
It was Raphael who reminded me of this incident. He added, "If Duterte can mistakenly put a congressman's name on a list and then admit it and say sorry, how much more uncertain is it for ordinary people?" Then Raphael asked, "Even if they do say sorry, what's the point when you are dead?"
Those documenting the spiralling death toll believe that, among the thousands killed by either police or hitmen, there is likely to have been scores of cases of mistaken identity. Many of those killed in police buy-bust operations are known to have had falsified evidence – sachets of shabu or homemade revolvers, oftentimes both – planted on their bodies.
A source in counter-narcotics told me, "They're not even trying to cover it up. Guns with identical serial numbers turn up in different incidents. Shells don't match the calibre. Revolvers are found in the right hands of left-handed people."
"Drug lords, don't be complacent with me. I will have you killed." - President Rodrigo Duterte
According to US online campaign stopthedrugwar.org, 49 people were killed in the United States in police drug-bust operations during 2016, with about one police officer killed for every ten dead civilians.
In the Philippines, meanwhile, according to government statistics, just 36 police personnel were killed during more than 50,000 drugs operations in Duterte's first ten months in power.
Compared with the US, counter-narcotics operations in the Philippines are not particularly dangerous for police, but all-too-often fatal for the suspect.
In addition to the watch lists and HVT lists, Duterte has his own personal "narco list", which he can be seen waving around during live televised addresses.
This list began with 158 government officials whom Duterte named and shamed, accusing them of involvement in illegal drugs activity right across the country. They included several serving or former congressmen and seven judges, as well as mayors, governors, scores of senior police workers – including generals – and military officers.
Speaking at the central command of the Philippines Army camp in Cebu City a month into his premiership, in July 2016, the president said, "These drug lords, these mayors, these governors – don't be complacent with me. I will have you killed."
He had presented no evidence against those whom he accused. It quickly transpired two on the list had already died.
In legal circles, the president's evidence-free allegations were a cause of growing concern. Father Ranhilio Aquino, dean of the San Beda Graduate School Of Law, where Duterte earned his law degree, said, "There is no basis for removing them from office."
Then the Philippines' Supreme Court chief justice, Maria Lourdes Sereno, entered the fray, pointing out that, given the number of judges who had been assassinated over the years, the president had rendered those he had named "vulnerable and veritable targets... in the war on drugs".
The next day, the president lashed out: "I'm giving you a warning," Duterte said. "Don't create a crisis... Don't order me. I'm telling you. I hope you are listening... Or would you rather I declare martial law?"
This was the first time the president had publicly threatened martial law. It wouldn't be the last. Sereno hit back, saying the thousands of brazen and unresolved killings of suspects on these lists had severely eroded perceptions of justice in the Philippines. In September 2017, congress began the process to impeach chief justice Sereno.
As the months went by and the drugs war plumbed new depths of brutality, Duterte's narco list lengthened dramatically.
He began to unfurl large drugs war diagrams that looked like genealogies, complete with photographs, annotations and flowchart arrows connecting the accused. The number of alleged narco judges grew to 40. Numbers in all the other categories also rose relentlessly. Duterte repeatedly asserted that "the problem is now all-encompassing, it is destroying our nation".
By early 2017, the PDEA announced that the president's narco list contained the names of more than 6,000 "suspects", although the New York Times would soon report that there were anywhere between 600,000 and more than one million names on the list (hardly surprising given that Duterte has claimed there are more than three million addicts in the country). One of the names on the presidential list was the mayor of Albuera, a town in Leyte province in the Eastern Visayas region, Rolando Espinosa. His son, Kerwin Espinosa, was also named.
"I have ordered people to look for him and shoot on sight like a dog," Duterte said.
Relatives of Leover Miranda, who was killed by police in an anti-drugs operation, 20 August 2017Getty Images
And that, a few weeks later, is exactly what happened. The mayor voluntarily surrendered within 24 hours of the president's initial ultimatum. He publicly urged his son to do the same. There had been no warrant out for him, but police had raided his family home, shot dead six of the mayor's bodyguards and apparently discovered a stash of eleven kilograms of shabu. Espinosa was released, then rearrested and, while in jail, was shot four times, thrice in the head, inside his cell, by police who claimed he had a gun and had shot at them. They also claimed they had found sachets of shabu in Espinosa's cell and in those of an alleged accomplice, who was also shot dead in a neighbouring cell.
In March 2017, a gutsy judge in Leyte issued arrest warrants for murder against superintendent Marvin Marcos and 18 other policemen for Espinosa's killing. They surrendered to their own police unit.
In July 2017, the PNP's director general, Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, ordered them to return to work.
While in jail, Espinosa had signed an affidavit, without a lawyer present, implicating 226 police officers, as well as senator De Lima, in a drugs ring allegedly run by his son, Kerwin, who had meanwhile fled the country. Three weeks after Espinosa senior's "unfortunate" death, Kerwin was tracked down in Abu Dhabi, where he was arrested, then deported. Within days of his return, Kerwin was paraded, wearing manacles and a bulletproof vest, before a senate hearing where he confessed to being a drug lord. He also accused De Lima of bankrolling her senatorial election campaign with the proceeds of drugs trafficking, testifying that she had received three separate tranches of shabu cash. De Lima claimed she had never met him and dismissed his testimony as a "nice script", advising Kerwin that his "cooperation" would not save his skin. "May God forgive you for all your lies about me – and I forgive you," she said to him in the senate.
I was in Davao when the hearing took place and so was Rodrigo Duterte. At a news conference, I raised with the president the dramatic escalation of the killings. He countered by raising the case of Espinosa, warning that other mayors involved in illegal drugs would suffer the same fate. "There are still mayors, still there," he said, "playing the narco-politics game and I'm warning them again. You might not want to hear it. You will not only lose your funds, you will lose your life." He then berated me for my impertinence in asking the question in the first place.
A week before Espinosa's death, another mayor, Samsudin Dimaukom, was gunned down in the autonomous Muslim province of Maguindanao, west of Davao City.
At the end of July 2017, a third mayor, Reynaldo Parojinog of Ozamiz City in Mindanao and also on Duterte's list, was shot dead, along with his wife and 13 other people, in a series of simultaneous predawn raids at several of the family's properties. CCTV cameras had been disabled. Not a single officer involved in the "shoot-outs" was injured.
Conspiracy theories swirled around these killings. In the cases of mayors Dimaukom and Espinosa, there were rumours that both men knew secrets Duterte did not want out.
By the first anniversary of Duterte's "narco list", one thing stood out: apart from some murdered mayors, there had only been a tiny handful of arrests and the only alleged narco-politician to face charges was the former human rights commissioner, justice secretary and Duterte-inquisitor De Lima, who is now a recognised Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.
Prior to her arrest, De Lima had traded accusations with Duterte about the other's involvement in the drug trade, with Duterte calling the former justice secretary "the mother of all drug lords" and De Lima repeatedly alleging that Duterte was the drug lords' "number-one protector".
The president's list served a key purpose, however, by allowing a cloud of suspicion to hang over those he so publicly accused, all of whom were then forced to live in perpetual anxiety, imagining they could be hit by an assassin's bullet at any time.
A cardboard sign was left on his body: 'I'm a drug pusher. Do not emulate me'
Beyond doubt, the most iconic image from the drugs war is a picture taken by Raffy Lerma, a night-shift photographer for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It depicts a weeping woman, Jennilyn Olayres, barefoot in the street, her arms and legs wrapped around the half-upright but limp body of her partner, 30-year-old Michael Siaron.
Siaron had been a pedicab driver in Pasay, Metro Manila, who, at 1am on 23 July 2016, was shot dead by killers riding in tandem. In the photograph, a crowd is gathered behind Olayres, held back by yellow police tape. In the foreground, you can make out the scrawled word "pusher" on torn cardboard, which was left on Siaron's body. The rest of the sign read, "I'm a drug pusher. Do not emulate me." A chalk circle on the tarmac rings the spot where police found a bullet casing. There are what looks like blood stains on the road. To many, the image evoked Michelangelo's "Pietà", the sculpture of Christ's limp body lying in his mother's lap after he was taken down from the cross.
Lerma's tragic but beautiful photograph went viral, published on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and in newspapers around the world. It seemed to capture the shock wave reverberating around the Philippines over the sudden rash of killings. It gave a face to victims who the president had said were scum, not even human. One newspaper commentator wrote of how the picture of Olayres and Siaron had "immortalised their powerlessness".
Duterte was not happy. In his first state of the nation address, he railed against the melodrama of the photograph and mocked Siaron's bereaved partner: "There you are, sprawled on the ground, and you are portrayed in a broadsheet as Mother Mary cradling the dead cadaver of Jesus Christ."
Olayres went into hiding. It took time to track her down, but, less than a month after Michael Siaron's death, I found her. The Philippine Daily Inquirer had photographed the "home" she had shared with Siaron, a dilapidated patchboard, tin-roofed shack, about eight foot by ten, built on rickety stilts above a disgusting canal of stagnant water, surrounded by a carpet of floating rubbish. They really were the poorest of the poor.
I met Olayres at Pasay City Cemetery, where Siaron had been buried.
It was threatening rain when she arrived by sidecar. She was wearing a white T-shirt with a Mickey Mouse print on the back and a black baseball cap embroidered with a disco dancer. Her long black hair was tied up in a ponytail and threaded through the back of the cap. Olayres was still fragile, and teary from the start. She had come with Siaron's father and little sister and brought some yellow lilies to place on the grave.
We meandered together between the cluttered tombs to what locals call the "Duterte Compound", a high-rise matrix of graves on the back wall where the remains of many of the victims of his drugs war are interred. Halfway along the wall of concrete box-graves and three layers up, a plaque with as-yet unfaded gold-leaf lettering read:
RIPMICHAEL C SIARON 26 October 1985 - 23 July 2016 Family Remembrance
Olayres lit a tall votive candle, reached up and placed it in a pool of melted wax, then stood in silent prayer, crying quietly. After a few minutes, she gathered herself and wandered over to a nearby tomb. At the invitation of the graveyard watchman, she sat down on top of one and it was right there, among the dead, that we talked. She told me how her life had disintegrated, how she felt completely crippled by what had happened and that she had been scared by Duterte's mocking of her. She explained why Siaron had occasionally smoked shabu: to keep him going as he worked ever longer hours to try to make ends meet. Olayres denied he had been a pusher or a dealer and said that he had even voted for Duterte. I asked her about the photograph and she started to cry again.
"I couldn't think of anything else to do but to cradle him, to find out if he might still be breathing," she sobbed. "I just wish these killings would stop. If only his death had ended all this. He's gone. He cannot speak for himself any more." But this was only the beginning. My graveyard interview with Olayres was brought to a sudden stop by an ear-splitting crack of thunder. Fat, heavy raindrops began to hit us and splatter like water bombs on the tops of tombs. Within another minute, it was tropical-torrential. The anvil-headed storm clouds had welled to bursting and the deluge could no longer be contained. The rain cascaded down onto the paupers' graves in the Duterte Compound, extinguishing the candles.
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KeywordsPoliticsLong readsMagazineJuly 2018 Issue


Some cars are lucky and some are not. The Triumph TR series definitely falls into the first category, for its launch could not have been less favourable. Yet for 9years the same well known range of sports cars sold strongly - more than80,000 were built – and put the Triumph name firmly back on the motoring map.
It all started in the early 1950's, when Standard-Triumphs chairman, Sir John Black, was inspired to produce a sports car for export. Standard had bought the re mains of the bankrupt and bombed out Triumph Company in 1944 and in the first few post war. Years had offered several undistinguished Triumphs.
In the meantime, MG produced the TC and TD sports cars, and Jaguar had produced the famous XK120. Both took the US by storm, and consequently Sir John Black took the attitude that if they could succeed in the States, so could he. But it could not be done overnight.
Chief styling Engineer, Walter Belgrove produced a new Roadster (the TRX) on a Standard Vanguard chassis, but it was too bulbous and had too many electro-hydraulic controls – it never got beyond the prototype stage. Next, Sir John tried an unsuccessful take over the Morgan company but after being rebuffed, decided to have another attempt 'in house '. So, the real TR3 story starts in 1952 on a minimum cost/minimum-tooling basis.
The result was a design using an obsolete 1936-39 Standard 9 chassis (over 500 were in stock in the parts dept.) onto which were grafted the Triumph Mayflower IFS and live rear axle. The Standard Vanguard engine was reduced in size by using small bore pistons and was slightly tuned by the addition of 2 SU carburettors, while the Vanguards 3-speed box was converted to 4-speed with a central gear change.
Not at all what the Directors wanted to hear but, swallowing their pride, Richardson was invited to join the company to develop a better TR. Thus it was that the definitive TR was first seen at the Geneva Show in 1953.
On sale from October 1955 to Summer 1957 the TR3 usually appeared as an open two-seater but a rear seat and bolt-on steel hard top were available on the optional extras list; as was a heater and an electrically operated overdrive unit on the top three gears, controlled by a switch on the dash'.
The production engine was a 1991cc straight-4 OHV SU-H6 carburettors fitted with putting out 95bhp, a figure later raised to 100bhp at 5000rpm when the "high port" cylinder head and enlarged manifold were added. In 1956 the TR3 became the first British production car to be fitted with disc brakes when these superseded the original front drums.
Suspension was by double A-arms with coil over shocks at the front (an anti-roll bar was optional) and solid axle and conventional leaf springs at the rear. The worm and peg steering was a weakness as the mechanism/linkage had considerable play, which only increased with wear. The stamped steel wheels were usually colour co-ordinated with the body colour or a standard silver, although optional 48-spoke wire wheels were available.
13,377 of the original TR3 cars were produced before the model had a "facelift" to became unofficially known as the TR3A from late 1957. The basic model cost £950 in the UK although only 1286 were actually sold in the UK, the majority of the cars went to the USA but exports to other countries did occur.
When engineer Joseph E. Giammarino and businessman Abe Shikes formed Aurora Plastics Corporation in March 1950 it wasn't especially for the world of plastic model kit manufacturing but as contract injection moulded plastic product manufacturers. The model kit adventure started with the hiring of salesman John Cuomo in 1952 and the company moved in to this growing hobby market...... and Monogram and Revell suddenly had a big rival on their hands. The New York company was astute enough to aim their products at the younger model makers creating smaller-sized, less detailed models at a lower price point and cutting into the market very profitably. They advertised under the slogan "U - Ma - Kit" (You Make It) and this certainly seemed to strike a chord with the younger audience.
The mainstay of Aurora was aircraft models and the first few years saw only aircraft being produced. But by 1956 aurora was pushing into car models with both static model kits and slot cars, in fact Aurora produced HO gauge slot cat racing sets from 1960.
What Aurora are best known for today though was their innovative tie-ins with movies. Aurora acquired licenses from Universal Studios to create figures of the Universal monsters such as the Frankenstein figure that appeared in 1961. Numerous films and TV shows were memorialised in this way and Aurora blazed the trail into what is now a burgeoning sci-fi and fantasy market. Many of Aurora's kits have later been re-released by Moebius, Atlantis and Monarch and Polar Lights, a name that was chosen as a reference to Aurora.
In 1969 the company was sold and the founders retired. The investors expanded the range but with little success and sold on the company in 1971 to Nabisco who in turn sold the kits manufacturing side to early rivals Monogram in 1977. Monogram of course re-issued some of the kits but many moulds were stored away and unused. Amongst them somewhere are the car kits which haven't stood the test of time and are only available on the second hand market were some command surprisingly high prices.
The Triumph TR3 kit, product # 518-49, is priced at about 130 Euros, approx' £100 to us Brits. It is featured below with two other Aurora kits, the MG TD and Jaguar K120, which are both similarly valued in mint condition.
Rod built the Aurora Triumph in the mid 1960s so it is constructed with tube cement and brush painted with Humbrol enamels. The point about Aurora's marketing strategy can be seen in the photo's so when Rod was able to get the Gunze Sangyo kit in 1/24th scale kit he didn't hesitate.
Kit # G-186:1200 originally released in 1985 and is a lovely kit in it's own right. Gunze Sangyo have released some excellent car kits over the years and the quality of parts fitting in often as good as Tamiya but the subjects are from a much broader base than their Japanese rivals. This kits was built in the 'naughties' and is painted with Halfords acrylic car spray paints. Citadel and Revell acrylic paints supported good old Humbrol enamels for the detail painting.


The taxpayers of Chambersburg should be admitted to the pool with no charge so they can see how the town council totally wasted millions of dollars of hard-earned money.
I read in the Public Opinion that on opening day of the Aquatic Center people with street clothes would be admitted at a reduced price. This is a real joke. The taxpayers of Chambersburg should be admitted with no charge so they can see how the town council totally wasted millions of dollars of hard-earned money. Then I read that the Boys and Girls Club got to try it. When do I get to see what my tax dollars were wasted on. Free.
Today I watched a newscast of President Trump awarding the Medal of Honor to Master Chief Britt Slabinski for rescuing fellow Navy Seals after a helicopter crashed in Afghanistan.
The President described how Slabinski and other crew members fought against insurgents and Master Chief Slabinski actually carried another buddy through a mountainous area, walking in deep snow to bring him to safety. I had planned to write a letter to discuss the sad state of affairs in our country, but when I saw this newscast, I found a sense of pride despite the problems in our country and government. I was happy that the Navy Seals were rescued and safe and now one was receiving the highest honor that America could bestow on him.
It's a good time to think about how America was started and what our founding fathers struggled through to establish the Constitution and Bill of Rights to guide future generations as to rules we should follow to keep our nation strong. Let's don't let those who oppose what is right to allow us to become complacent and wait "for the other fellow to do something about those who would do us harm."
Stand up for our freedoms, be proud to be an American. Think of those in your own family who have served our country honorably, and never forget!
In my previous letter I asked what the Democratic Party stood for as we head toward the midterm elections. Unless I missed it, nobody responded.
However, the Dems themselves continue to answer my question.
After the Trump-hating liberal media lied about President Trump calling all immigrants animals, the Dems, like a cat and the red dot, pounced. President Trump was responding to a comment made by a Sheriff from CA, and the liberal media did not bother to air her comment, only President Trump's response.
Pelosi and Schumer were outraged at MS 13 gang members being called animals. Looks like Dems and the liberal media are now the PR staff for MS 13. I guess the left feels all MS 13 gang members need is love.
Nancy Pelosi herself has promised if Dems take back Congress they will raise your taxes. Yes, Nancy wants those "crumbs" of the Trump tax cut back in D.C. where they belong.
The Russian Collusion Delusion story continues to backfire on the left. No evidence has been found showing any collusion with Russia and the Trump campaign. Only collusion with the DNC and the Hillary campaign. We now know the Obama administration had spies in the Trump campaign reporting back to the FBI. This is turning out to be a like an episode of "24."
Despite overwhelming negative press coverage, President Trump's approval numbers continue to increase. The U.S. economy is strong, and the nation has record low unemployment, and wages are on the rise. Consumer confidence is soaring, and people are giving President Trump credit for the improved U.S. economy. No wonder I seldom see a smile on the face of a Democrat.
Finally I saw on TV the perfect Dem voter. A 30-year-old man was evicted by his parents from their home. An able-bodied person who refused to work and demands other people pay for all his wants, needs and desires. He did not pay rent and did not do anything around the house. He refused several requests by his parents to move out, get a job, and his own place to live.
He is the ideal Dem candidate for political office. Reminds of a current Senator from Vermont where everything you want in life will be provided and paid for by someone else.


text:
Selkirk man, 21, takes own life in prison cell
Family ties mental illness, abuse in prison to hanging
Paul Grondahl
Nov. 4, 2014 Updated: Nov. 5, 2014 3 p.m.
(Bethlehem PD photo) Bethlehem police charged a Selkirk teen with arson in an Aug. 4, 2010, fire at a Delmar home. Benjamin P. Van Zandt, 17, of Vista Lane, Selkirk, was arraigned Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010, in Bethlehem Town Court on charges of third-degree arson, second-degree burglary, second-degree criminal mischief, fourth-degree grand larceny and first-degree reckless endangerment. The arson charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The fire broke out in the home of Robert Lilley, 112 Hasgate Drive, while he and his family were on vacation in France.
A 21-year-old Selkirk man with a history of mental illness who was imprisoned for arson at age 17 and whose family said he had been repeatedly harassed by older inmates hanged himself in his cell Thursday at Fishkill state prison, state corrections officials said.
Benjamin Van Zandt was found dead in his cell by a prison staff member making rounds at 6 p.m., said Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
Van Zandt had been placed in solitary confinement in a special housing unit, or SHU, on Oct. 28 for fighting with another inmate, Foglia said. Prisoners call it The Box. He died two days later.
Van Zandt, a Bethlehem High School student and Boy Scout who was close to achieving the rank of Eagle Scout when he was arrested, set fire to the home of a vacationing Delmar family to cover up the theft of credit cards. He pleaded guilty in Albany County Court in 2010 to third-degree arson, a Class C felony, and was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison.
He was the 11th suicide this year among New York's 54,000 state prisoners. He was also the youngest inmate to take his own life, Foglia said.
Foglia would not release details about Van Zandt's death and would not say whether Van Zandt was under a suicide watch or had received any psychological monitoring. She did say that there was no indication of foul play.
She said his death is under investigation by multiple agencies, including the State Police, the Dutchess County coroner and the state Commission of Correction, which investigates inmate deaths.
A preliminary report by the commission, which was notified of Van Zandt's death in a timely manner, has not been completed, spokesman Walter McClure said.
Van Zandt's mother said the family was trying to get information, even as they prepared for their son's funeral on Friday at the First Unitarian Universalist Society in Albany.
"We're in the process of grieving for our son," she said, and declined to discuss it further.
In an obituary the family published in the Times Union, Van Zandt was described as a "loving, caring person, with a wonderful sense of humor."
The family has retained attorney Cheryl Kates of Ontario County, who specializes in prisoner litigation.
"The family is very upset," Kates said. "I want to give the family time to grieve. I ask that people respect their privacy until after the funeral is over."
Friends of the family described a confluence of mental illness and intense harassment by inmates against Van Zandt. He entered the prison as a baby-faced teen who played violin in his school orchestra and excelled at math and science before he was placed among hardened criminals twice his age.
The fire he admitted setting at the 112 Hasgate Drive home did damage estimated at $455,000 after Van Zandt smashed a window, sprayed gasoline in several rooms and used a cigarette lighter to ignite the blaze.
He initially was sent to Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Sullivan County, where he took courses at Bard College and enjoyed his studies, according to a family friend who did not want to have his name used. Bringing back a piece of bread from the cafeteria to the dormitory at the request of another inmate got Van Zandt expelled from the Bard program and he became depressed, the friend said.
"He was moved to another unit and things went down from there," the family friend said. Older prisoners began to exploit, intimidate and harass him. His parents appealed to prison officials, who transferred Van Zandt to Mid-State Correctional Facility in Oneida County. Both are medium security prisons with dormitory housing.
At Mid-State, he was given an S designation, meaning he had a serious mental health diagnosis and was housed in a crisis unit with additional monitoring and treatment services, the family friend said.
Van Zandt was allowed to exercise and walk around in the general population two hours each day, but reputed gang members coerced him into carrying drugs, the family friend said. Van Zandt was caught, disciplined and transferred to Fishkill, also medium security.
"He was a very fragile young man and it's all terribly sad, but you could see this coming," said Robert Corliss of Schenectady, a retired advocate for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health Association in New York State. He is a longtime advocate of prison reform for mentally ill inmates and worked with Van Zandt's family.
Corliss said Van Zandt's tender age was a factor in the harassment he suffered from other inmates. New York is one of only two states that puts prisoners as young as 16 in with adults.
"Ben ended up in a situation where he was continuously harassed and abused physically and mentally," said Corliss. "He had a nice, supportive family and they did everything they could to help him. I question whether he should have been placed in the SHU at all, given his serious mental illness."
Corliss helped win a legal settlement this year that limited the state's use of solitary confinement with inmates who are pregnant, younger than 18 or developmentally disabled. He and other advocates continued to fight for additional reforms, especially on behalf of mentally ill inmates in a decades-long legal battle to end what many experts deem "cruel and unusual punishment." The advocates also pushed for more mental health treatment services in prisons.
In 2013, there were 8,197 mentally ill inmates in a prison population of about 54,500 prisoners, according to state records. A 2012 New York Civil Liberties Union report, "Boxed In," documented roughly 4,000 prisoners who were locked down for 23 hours a day for violating prison rules. The average time in isolation was 150 days. The report found psychological damage and a rise in suicide attempts from punitive segregation in SHUs.
Dr. Stuart Grassian, a Boston psychiatrist, coined the term "SHU syndrome," in which prisoners confined for long periods in solitary show a range of symptoms of mental illness, including depression, increased paranoia, agitation, manic activity, delusions and suicide.
The Van Zandt family friend said the mother had visited her son recently and discovered that prison officials had taken away his antidepressant medication for an unknown reason. It was unclear if he had resumed the medication at the time of his death, the family friend said.
Van Zandt had served more than 3½ years of his sentence, was due for a parole hearing in December and was eligible for parole in January, according to prison records.
"It's so tragic," said Alison Coleman, director of Prisoners Families of New York, who worked with the Van Zandt family. "I will wait for the investigation and report, but it seems like his case was not handled well."
"We've got a long way to go on prison mental health issues," Corliss said. "We've been fighting a long time, but it's only been incremental progress."
pgrondahl@timesunion.com • 518-454-5623 • @PaulGrondahl
Paul Grondahl is a former staff writer at the Times Union, where he worked from 1984 to 2017 and won numerous local, state and national writing prizes for in-depth projects. He left to become director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and continues to contribute a weekly human-interest column for the Times Union. He is the author of several books, including political biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd. He teaches a freshman writing workshop at UAlbany and mentors young journalists. You can reach him at grondahlpaul@gmail.com.


A recently released state audit found that San Diego County nurses are effectively meeting the health needs of children and families, the county announced Friday.
The California State Auditor's report, released Thursday, also found the county appropriately used its surge plan, available in case of major medical incidents, when responding to the recent hepatitis A outbreak. Additionally, local public health nurse programs are adequately funded, according to the report.
However, the audit also recommended the county develop additional efficiency measures for utilizing nurses. The report also found the county's Health and Human Services Agency cannot sufficiently demonstrate that it has the appropriate number of public health nurses.
"To better ensure and demonstrate that it efficiently meets the public health needs of at‑risk county residents and that it employs the appropriate number of PHNs in the right locations to address those needs, the Health Agency should measure and assess PHN efficiency," the report stated.
There currently are no required or generally accepted standards for measuring and assessing caseloads and workloads for California nurses, according to the audit.


There has been lots of press about the struggles of traditional publishers in making the transition to a more digitally-enabled business model, but less attention has been paid to the impact of digital on catalogs and other retail-oriented pieces that typically have been produced in print. Printers take note: There is significant change coming your way if you are in the business of producing print for retail.
While you might interpret this statement to pertain to online shopping carts, it goes much further than that, and is likely to have a growing impact on print volumes. Yet another argument for printers adding tablet publishing to the mix.
I spoke with Dave Dickson, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, to get a little more insight. And Adobe was kind enough to send us an infographic—some people love 'em, some people hate 'em, but I find them helpful in taking a structured view of the subject and data.
The survey was conducted during the 2012 holiday shopping season among more than 1,000 shoppers who owned tablet/mobile devices.
Retail apps are also gaining in popularity, according to the study. These brand-specific apps make shopping at a particular venue easier and bolster customer loyalty, both important in a highly competitive retail market which hasn't been helped much by an uncertain economy. In fact, according to Dickson, more than half of shoppers expect to make a purchase using a retail app in the next year, up 15% over the previous three months, a significant uptick on a growth path that is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.
Retailers are also looking to better understand a changing marketing mix as well. One interesting thing the study revealed is that whether you are speaking of smartphone or tablet shoppers, nearly 90% mobile purchasing decisions are influenced by friends, reflecting the ease of garnering those opinions and interactions with a larger number of friends in a short period of time in an increasingly mobile world. This is driving retailers to increasingly tap into the power of social media to increase their visibility, customer loyalty, and ultimately, sales.
In terms of operating systems, retailers are focusing primarily on the iPad/iPhone environment, with somewhat less activity on the Android scene. One has to wonder, however, whether we will see a shift in this focus during 2013 and beyond. There are signs that a post-Jobs Apple is struggling a bit, and it remains to be seen how that will play out over time. Apple has proved amazingly resilient in the past; how much of that was due to Jobs-as-visionary is not clear at this point.
The other factor that may help boost Android activity is Google's concerted effort to move OEMs to more recent versions of the Android operating system; Samsung has recently announced it is moving to the latest platform, Jelly Bean, which may encourage others to follow. Having used the Jelly Bean operating system, compared to earlier Android versions, I can tell you that it is significantly improved and in a position to compete more favorably with iOS than previous versions.
Of course, from Adobe's perspective, the ease of creating digital publications for a variety of smaller-screen mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) using the Digital Publishing Suite is a key driver that enables retailers to join the digital publishing movement with both catalogs and magalogs that also contain lifestyle content in addition to product information. Magalogs include integrated lifestyle content that shows the product in the context of its use, and this, according to Dickson, helps consumers to more easily envision themselves using the product.
Printers: are you considering tablet publishing as part of your future? Your customers certainly are.


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thejjReport
Plot to 'assassinate lawmakers who won't overturn election' exposed as state of emergency declared over more chaos
A PLOT to "assassinate lawmakers who won't overturn the election" has been exposed as a state of emergency is declared over more chaos.
Democrats were informed about three potential demonstrations that are planned in the coming days, according to Axios.
Capitol Police reportedly told House blues that they were closely monitoring the incidents, which could be serious threats to members of Congress.
The outlet reported that the first is the "largest armed protest ever to take place on American soil."
Another is in honor of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by police while trying to climb into the Speaker's Lobby last week.
The final plot would involve protesters creating a border around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court.
Lawmakers were told that supporters were encircling the White House, so that no one could harm Trump and the Supreme Court to close the courts.
However, the plan to enclose the Capitol includes ideas to assassinate Democrats and Republicans who did not support Trump's effort to change the results of the election, the outlet reported.
The Capitol Police have since created a new perimeter with fencing and razor wire, with the National Guard standing by.
One member of Congress told the outlet: "It was pretty overwhelming."
Just hours before, an FBI bulletin, obtained by ABC, apparently confirmed that the law enforcement agency has received reports of an armed group planning to travel to DC on January 16.
The document details that armed protests are being planned in all 50 state Capitols, with protests at the US Capitol reportedly planned from January 17 through January 20.
On Monday night, President Trump approved a state of emergency declaration amid the fears of more violent clashes.
Trump ordered federal agencies to provide assistance to local law enforcement as fears of violence continue to mount after his supporters stormed into the nation's Capitol last week.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote to Trump on Sunday asking for the emergency declaration.
An emergency declaration allows the government to increase powers in a certain area. It can be declared for a number of reasons, from natural disasters to the current Covid outbreak.
It can also be declared due to civil unrest, making Trump's declaration of emergency concerning as fears are already mounting about how to keep Biden's inauguration safe.
Trump's declaration states that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can provide needed assistance from Monday through January 24.
In the wake of the January 6 attack, which erupted after Trump spoke to his supporters in DC as Congress was certifying the 2020 election, authorities have started beefing up plans to keep Biden's swearing-in secure.
The Secret Service is planning to implement security measures a week before the inauguration, and the DC National Guard plans to have a minimum of 10,000 troops on the ground by the weekend, according to The Hill.
Tags: 'assassinate, Lawm, Plot, to
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Aquatics Blog
London Olympics to showcase strength of aquatic sports
By FINA on July 16, 2012
FINA Executive Director Cornel Marculescu interview
FINA Executive Director Cornel Marculescu believes the London 2012 Olympic Games will demonstrate to the sporting world the passion, talent, excitement and innovation of the burgeoning aquatics sector.
As one of the driving forces of the Olympic Movement, aquatics have unsurprisingly been amongst the hottest tickets at the Games. Swimming and diving competitions were among the very first sporting events to sell out, while such was the demand for synchronised swimming that London 2012 had to offer 10,000 ticket-holders an alternative sporting event.
Marculescu was taken aback by the level of public interest when he attended the Olympic test events at London's new state-of-the-art 17,000-seat Aquatics Centre, and he expects more of the same when the Games get underway later this month.
"We are one of the pillars of the Olympic Games and in London it will be one of the best ever events," Marculescu said.
"All 15 days of the competition have sold out for aquatic sports though, so we could do with double the number of seats in the Aquatics Centre!
"At the test events the enthusiasm from the public was fantastic. I have been in my position for seven editions of the Olympics, and I can honestly say the enthusiasm for the London Games is special. We are delighted to be a part of that by bringing as usual an additional value to the Games."
Marculescu is relishing the prospect of the pool's top competitors shining at the iconic Aquatics Centre, which at a height of 150ft is one of most striking new sporting venues on the London skyline.
"The most important thing is to have stars, and the interest is there because of them," he said. "In London I'm sure the starts of swimming likes of Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and others will excite the crowds, and then of course in diving you have guys like Tom Daley, who are fantastic.
"Interest in the aquatics events at the Olympics, and the FINA World Championships, is definitely increasing, and we are getting stronger around the world."
Next year's FINA World Championships will take place in the 1992 Summer Olympics host city of Barcelona in Spain, and the 2015 Championships will be staged in Kazan, Russia.
Marculescu, and FINA, are working towards an initiative to engage the wider public in an innovative new way at the Kazan event in three years' time.
"We are looking to enlarge the FINA World Championships by including the FINA World Masters Championships, such as mass participation event," he said. "In Kazan, it would be great to have all together more than 12,000 – 13,000 participants participating in all five FINA aquatic disciplines. Such change in dimension of the FINA major event would for sure bring an important economic impact to the host city and promote our sport even further."
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