1:04 Jerry Brown scolds Fresno sheriff in voicemail Pause
0:45 Woman, 80, murdered in central Fresno home
0:42 Students remember Hanford principal
0:55 Motorcyclist splits lanes on Fresno streets; CHP gets OK to set guidelines
0:37 Stabbing in front of Edison High sends one to hospital
0:09 Cedar Fire time-lapse video shows wisps of smoke to a billowing cloud
1:40 Valley students reflect on first day at Fresno State
0:45 After 20 years, new search started for Debbie Dorian's killer
1:08 Update: 5 dead in Merced County tour bus crash

Out & About: Molly Day Blood Drive at Clovis Community College


There was a constant line to donate blood Friday at the Central California Blood Center’s mobile unit at Clovis Community College. Students and staff performed an act of kindness by giving blood in honor of Molly Griffin, a former student who was tragically killed by a drunken driver last year at the age of 23. Aug. 26 would have been Griffin’s 25th birthday, and people all over the Valley and beyond participated in Molly Day using #LiveLikeMolly on social media to announce their random acts of kindness.


Tri-River Athletic Conference players on the 2016 high school football season
Five to watch: Adrian Martinez, Clovis West football
Five to watch: Ryan Johnson, Hanford High football
Five to Watch: Taylen Ballard, Clovis High volleyball
Can Bullard twin linebackers Ben Baker and Cameron Lamanuzzi repeat 2009 cast?
3:24

Indulge with a ‘bad’ poutine at Sierra Vista Mall’s newest restaurant


A Canadian dish that includes everyone’s favorite — French fries — defines the cuisine at a new restaurant in Clovis.


3:00 Family, friends celebrate life of Sierra High principal Greg Henry Pause
3:37 Robbers hit three Fresno convenience stores
0:42 Students remember Hanford principal
1:24 Fresno Fire Department welcomes 16 firefighter trainees and makes promotions
2:24 Running water brings East Porterville resident Juana Garcia peace of mind amid drought
1:53 Dry well at East Porterville church helped pastor identify with drought-stricken community
2:04 Japanese study abroad students spend day at Holland Elementary in Fresno
1:53 Remember the Malayan tigers? Here's a look back at their first year at Fresno Chaffee Zoo
0:16 A look at the family dogs that killed a 3-day-old girl in Fresno

In the Senior Spotlight: Cecilia A. Luena


I was born in the Philippines to Filemon Agustin, a farmer, and Beatriz Alejandrino Agustin, the sixth of 11 children. I grew up on a small farm in a small community, the Science City of the Philippines. We have one of two agricultural universities in the Philippines, attended by students from countries around the world.


Out & About: Crush Days at Clovis Community College


Local soccer star hired to coach women’s Clovis Crush team as it heads to first game Aug. 27


With less than two weeks of practice under their cleats, Clovis Community College’s first women’s soccer team will compete in their first official game Saturday, Aug. 27 against Sierra College in Rocklin.


Clovis High graduate acts out his passion for performing


Randy Kohlruss — an aspiring actor from Clovis — played a sociopath on speed this summer in a local production of “The Who’s Tommy,” a rock musical. A reviewer called him “a standout.”


Clovis sushi restaurant Sashimi Express opens second location


When one door closes, another door opens — such is the case for Sashimi Express, the hole-in-the-wall sushi joint treasured by Clovis locals around Willow and Nees.


The buzzin’, bubblin’ brew: Yellow Mug Coffee opens in northeast Fresno


From the bustling streets of San Francisco to the simplicity of Fresno, Yellow Mug Coffee opens to a city of coffeeholics.


A different kind of relief: New medical practice opens in Old Town


One of the newest medical offices in the City of Clovis was opened by a doctor who spent 31 years prescribing pharmaceuticals in the ER — and now issues medical marijuana cards to ease patients’ pain and suffering.


Tri-River Athletic Conference players on the 2016 high school football season
Five to watch: Adrian Martinez, Clovis West football
Five to watch: Ryan Johnson, Hanford High football
Five to Watch: Taylen Ballard, Clovis High volleyball
Can Bullard twin linebackers Ben Baker and Cameron Lamanuzzi repeat 2009 cast?
3:24

Miss Winkles Pet of the Week of Aug. 8: Pongo


OK, so Pongo might bring to mind the image of a spotted dog, but this kitty is making the name his own. He’s a handsome Domestic Medium Hair with sparkly green eyes and fantastic brown tabby striping.


Clovis Police to focus on traffic safety laws during back-to-school time


Back-to-school is only a few weeks away in the Clovis Unified School District and Clovis Police officers, including those on Zero Motors, will patrol in and around Clovis elementary, intermediate and high school campuses on August 22.


Out & About: The Big Book Sale at Sierra Vista Mall


The Friends of the Fresno County Public Library is holding the 6th annual Big Book Sale Aug. 17-21 in two retail spaces near Kohl’s in Sierra Vista Mall. The annual fundraiser helps support library branches across the county. While members of the nonprofit group shopped on Wednesday, the public is invited to shop the sale Thursday through Sunday. On the last day of the sale, shoppers can fill up a bag with as many books as it could hold and pay just $5.


Clovis Senior in the Spotlight: Karen Olsen Jenkins


I was born in Ogden, Utah, weighing in at 4-pounds, 6-ounces, screaming my head off and causing all sorts of commotion then. Ask Vernon if I am still causing commotion.


Clifford Bethel, Jr., died July 31, 2016 at the age of 64. He was born Jan. 8, 1952 in Fresno to Clifford and Colleen. Shortly after his graduation from Sierra High School, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving in Vietnam.


Did you know today in Clovis Unified School District, there are more fresh fruits and vegetables offered than ever before? CUSD understands without a doubt that parents want the best for their children. Here at CUSD we have the same motivation regarding your child’s health and nutrition needs.


The Book Nook celebrates one year in Old Town on Aug. 15


Longtime Clovis residents Ed and Linda Flores wanted to help people understand the Christian faith — what they believe and why they believe it — so the couple opened a bookstore in Old Town Clovis a year ago.


High school students showcase bright futures in medical research


Seven high school students from Clovis spent part of their summer studying biomedicine.


Women in recovery bake dog treats to beat addiction, gain employment through St. Francis Homeless Project


For some, second chances come in the form of a dog treat.


Tri-River Athletic Conference players on the 2016 high school football season
Five to watch: Adrian Martinez, Clovis West football
Five to watch: Ryan Johnson, Hanford High football
Five to Watch: Taylen Ballard, Clovis High volleyball
Can Bullard twin linebackers Ben Baker and Cameron Lamanuzzi repeat 2009 cast?
3:24

#LiveLikeMolly: Family encourages random acts of kindness on Aug. 26 to honor woman killed by drunk driver


If someone secretly pays for your latte on Aug. 26, join in with #LiveLikeMolly and pay the good deed forward.


Wish this woman happy 103rd birthday today!


Three years ago, the mayor of Clovis declared Aug. 18 Alene Cooper Day when the Clovis resident turned 100 years old. Cooper will celebrate her 103rd birthday today surrounded by family.


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Matthew Walli's Page on finnishcanadian.com


Top Guns: Shelby Tops Tennessee in Handgun Permits


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click to enlarge
starts out with a moment of quiet bravado: “If you must blink, do it now.”The voice, we will soon learn, belongs to our hero Kubo (Art Parkinson, aka the youngest Stark on), and “If you must blink…” is the beginning of his carny pitch. But it also doubles as a manifesto for one of the most visually sumptuous films of the year.11 years before, the infant Kubo washed up on a beach with his mother; now, he earns money to support her as a street performer. With his magic(a three-stringed, Japanese musical instrument), he can bring origami figures to life and use them to bring tales of derring-do to life for the curious villagers. The star of his stories is a paper samurai named Hanzo, modeled after the boy’s missing father.Already it’s easy to see the mythic resonances in Kubo’s story: Perseus also survived abandonment at sea, and later learned he was demigod, son of Zeus and the mortal Danae. Kubo’s father Hanzo was mortal, but his mother was the most powerful of three daughters of Raiden the Moon King (voiced by Ralph Fienes).
You might think this curious, because Perseus was Greek, and the world where Kubo lives is undoubtedly a stylized version of feudal Japan. The mixing of East and West continues through the story, a largely by-the-book Hero’s Journey sprinkled liberally with concepts from Shinto and Japanese folklore. It’s the mark of a team of young filmmakers, led by Travis Knight, who have clearly grown up steeped in manga, anime, and Studio Ghibli.
Instead of hailing from Tokyo, Knight’s animation studio Laika is based in Portland, Oregon, and Knight’s father Philip is the co-founder of Nike. Laika is the studio behind great-looking stop motion films such as Coraline, but this is CEO Travis’ first credit as director, which might lead the more cynical among us to dismiss Kubo as a rich guy’s vanity project—or a shot across the bow of the Disney battleship.
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Kubo’s questing companions include the wise Monkey, voiced with incredible precision by Charlize Theron, and the rather thick Beetle, a perfectly cast Matthew McConaughey.
Kubo is thrust into adventure when he inadvertently exposes his whereabouts to his evil aunties, a pair of black-clad twins chillingly voiced by Rooney Mara. Kubo’s grandfather stole one of his eyes when he was an infant, and now the Moon King wants the other one.
The real star of the show is the seamless blend of advanced stop motion animation and CGI, which Laika use to create stunning, hyperreal images, such as an underwater garden of malign, staring eyes, and a boat made of orange fall leaves.
When he leaves the familiar environs of his village, Kubo awakens in a featureless, snowy landscape. There’s no shortage of eye-popping set pieces in the film, but this little moment of visual restraint stuck out as proof that Laika’s head is in the right place. A lesser film would have been afraid to bore its audience by going blank, but Knight and company let the landscape’s lack of landmarks reflect their hero’s psychic dislocation. Kubo’s visuals are not just knockout gorgeous, they’re always in service of character and story.
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How has Laika succeeded where so many other have failed this year? There are four credited writers, none of whom are the director, which means it was not the vision of a single auteur, but the product of a healthy collaborative process.
This is the model of contemporary corporate filmmaking that has recently seen so many specularly expensive failures. A plucky little studio, both geographically and spiritually removed from the Hollywood sausage factory, has beat the majors at their own game, and they’ve done it for a fraction of the cost.
The dog days of August is when Hollywood traditionally dumps the losers from their summer line ups, but with Kubo and the Two Strings, they’ve saved the best for last.


Kubo And The Two Strings starts out with a moment of quiet bravado: “If you must blink, do it now.” The voice, we will soon...


click to enlarge Gatti, Kellner, Beinvenu & Montesi
Most car accidents in Shelby County happen on Thursday between 3 p.m.-6 p.m. Drivers between 16-25 get in more accidents here.Alcohol related crashes continue to decrease, a trend beginning around 2012. Though, distracted driving crashes are going steadily up.These are just some of the findings from new research by Memphis law firm Gatti, Keltner, Bienvenu & Montesi.Check out a huge infographic from the firm below. Read its findings here Brought to you by Gatti, Keltner, Bienvenu & Montesi

Report: Alcohol Crashes Down, Distracted Driving Accidents Up


Most car accidents in Shelby County happen on Thursday between 3 p.m.-6 p.m. Drivers between 16-25 get in more accidents here. Alcohol related crashes continue...


click to enlarge Leni Riefenstahl filming the famous diving sequences for Olympia in 1936,
The iconic long shot of the Nuremburg rally in Triumph Of The Will. George Lucas would later reference this image for the closing scene of the original Star Wars.
Riefenstahl's images of nude athletes were inspired by classical Greek statues.
click to enlarge The torch lighting sequence from Olympia.
click to enlarge Jesse Owens in Olympia
click to enlarge Jesse Owens prepares to set a world record at the Berlin Olympics.
Adolf Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl.
If you want to open a can of philosophical worms, watchI originally decided to addto my Politics and the Movies series while watching the Olympics. I thought it would be a good way to talk about propaganda, a subject that is more important than ever as we try to sustain democracy in the information age. What better way to approach the subject than tackling the work of Hitler’s favorite filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl?Her filmwas presented as a documentary of the 1934 Nazi Party Congress at Nuremberg, Germany. But, seeing as it was commissioned and paid for by the Hitler regime that had, at that point, only been in power for a year. I don’t know if I can really recommend watching(I had to watch it in a film class a long time ago), but you’ve seen echoes of the imagery Riefenstahl created to glorify the Third Reich. The final scene of, where the heroes are given medals, is a direct lift from. In its opening scenes, Hitler arrives at Nuremberg in an airplane, greeted by a hoard of adoring followers. This has been Donald Trump’s MO through much of his campaign. As quoted in the Wikipedia article about, Riefenstahl said her instructions from Hitler were, in retrospect, chillingly simple: “He wanted a film which would move, appeal to, impress an audience which was not necessarily interested in politics.”Just as today, Hitler was interested in quickly impressing the “low-information voter”. There’s no question that all of Riefenstahl’s work, including, is visually beautiful. She had an unerring eye for composition and a strong experimental streak she inherited from the German Expressionist filmmakers with whom she worked as an actress in the 1920s.is fascism putting its best foot forward. The appeal of fascism is the natural human urge to belong to a tribe, and for that tribe to be strong. To belong to a tribe means you will be protected, and that difficult questions such as “What is my place in the world?” and “What will I do when I grow up?” have easy answers. Fascism promises to ease the psychic pain of being an individual in a chaotic world.Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels were so impressed withthat they commissioned Riefenstahl to create a documentary about the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The modern games had been going on for 40 years at that point, but no one had ever made a serious attempt at filming them before. Riefenstahl set about the task with typical forethought and attention to detail. One of the many innovations the Nazis brought to the Olympics was the torch relay, anduses it as a powerful opening sequence to connect the world of classical Greece to the present of 1936.Here’s the thing about: It looks like pretty much every Olympics you’ve seen on television. Or rather, all of the ways you have seen The Olympics on television were invented by Leni Riefenstahl as part of a Nazi propaganda film. She uses slow motion, extreme close ups of the athlete’s faces and bodies, candid footage of competitors warming up and chatting before events, and shots of the crowd cheering for their countries favorites. (The "USA! USA!" chant was already familiar to the crowd, but the one laugh out loud moment for me was a chant by English track and field fans: “We want you to win!”) There’s plenty of rooting for the home team, too. Different cuts of the movie were released in English and French. The cut ofavailable on YouTube is the original German, and the Nazi athletes are referred to as “our men.” But it’s ultimately much less biased than NBC’s primetime coverage of the gymnastics competitions, where it sometimes looked like the Americans were the only ones competing. Propaganda works because people like it.Butfails at its mission of being pure Nazi propaganda. Hitler wanted the 1936 games to prove his theories of Aryan racial superiority, but he didn’t count on Jesse Owens, one of the greatest athletes who ever lived, and who just happened to be both American and black. In, Owens doesn’t just win his races, he demolishes the competition in a way not seen again until Usain Bolt took to the track. Riefenstahl doesn’t sugar coat it, even for German audiences. People who have never done any film or video editing don’t realize how much power the editor has. Riefenstahl was working with hundreds of hours of candid footage shot by a small army of cameramen. It would have been easy to pick images of Owens when he was badly lit, or grimacing, or, like NBC did with the non-American gymnasts, just edit him out entirely. Riefenstahl does none of that. It’s clear fromthat Owens was the most physically fit person on the field, and he had kind, intelligent eyes and a magnetic smile to boot. Riefenstahl’s camera loves him. And it’s not just Owens. American distance runner John Woodruff won a dramatic 800 meter race with a combination of daring strategy and sheer speed. He was also black. The Japanese won gold and bronze in the marathon. Indians, Africans, South Americans are all represented among the athletic excellence Riefenstahl filmed. The humanist message of the games shines through the layers of attempted propaganda, givinga remarkable, and perhaps unique, tension.The examples of beautiful art created by loathsome individuals lie thick on the ground all around us. Pablo Picasso was perhaps the 20th century’s greatest visual genius, but you wouldn’t want your sister to date him. Ezra Pound, who not only wrote incredible poetry of his own but also edited T.S. Eliot, was much more clearly a true Fascist believer than Riefenstahl. Must we throw out “The Wasteland”? In film, there’s Roman Polanski, whoseis on the shortlist of the greatest films ever made, but who has been on the run from a statutory rape conviction since 1977. Woody Allen is widely admired as a filmmaker, but he had an affair with and ultimately married his adoptive stepdaughter. Does that makeany less of a film? Right now, the most anticipated film of the fall is, a drama about the Nat Turner slave rebellion that sold at Sundance for the largest amount ever paid for an indie film. When it came to light that director Nate Parker was accused of rape in 2001, and his accuser committed suicide in 2012, the American Film Institute cancelled a scheduled screening. I haven’t seen the film, but if Parker, who was acquitted in a trial, really was guilty, does that automatically mean the film is bad and should not be viewed? Are the Olympics tainted because the techniques and images that made the games an icon of modernity came from a Nazi propagandist? Democracies use propaganda, too, and advertising has perfected the techniques Riefenstahl pioneered. The tools are neutral, it is the purpose to which they are put that matters.Since I believe that authorial intent is secondary to audience reaction in the creation of meaning, I tend to advocate separating the artist from the art. So what to make of Riefenstahl? If you’ve ever tried to raise money to make a film—or raise capital to start any kind of business, for that matter—you might have found yourself in a situation where you had to decide whether or not to take money from an unsavory character. Filmmakers in the Hollywood system constantly find themselves in a position where they must compromise their visions in favor of their financiers political whims. When I wrote a paper on Riefenstahl in college, I came away with the impression of a woman whose primary motivation was making beautiful images, and who was willing to let the ideological chips fall where they may. But that doesn’t excuse. Some bridges are just too far to cross.


If you want to open a can of philosophical worms, watch Olympia. I originally decided to add Olympia to my Politics and the Movies series...


click image Habitat for Humanity of Greater Memphis
Jimmy Carter
A year ago this month, former President Jimmy Carter announced that he had a form of skin cancer that had spread to his brain. Just a year later, 91-year-old Carter and his wife Rosalynn are out in the Memphis heat building houses for the 33rd Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project for Habitat for Humanity."A year ago in August, I thought I had two or three weeks to live. It'd already moved to part of my liver, and I've had four different cancers in my brain," said Carter in an exclusive interview with theduring a break from installing siding on a Habitat house near Uptown. "I was prescribed some new medicine, and it worked on me, thank goodness."The Carters announced that they'd be working on this project to build 19 new homes in Bearwater Park, just north of Uptown, last November. Their planned 32nd Habitat project in Nepal last year was canceled due to civil unrest in that country, so the presidential pair came to Memphis instead. They built one home then and made the announcement that the 33rd project would come to Memphis in 2016. But he had cancer then, and he said he wasn't sure he'd make it back."I told the news reporters I'd be back [this] year. But I didn't know if I was going to come back or not," Carter said.Now cancer-free, Carter is back to work — working from about 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily this week alongside his wife (she's 89) and country stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who are also in Memphis helping with the Habitat project. The four are working on a house together, one of 18 new homes along a residential street called Unity Lane. The Carters started their annual Habitat project in 1984, and each year, they travel to a different location around the world."We've been to 14 foreign countries, some of them several times. The largest we had was 14,000 volunteers, and we built 293 houses in five days. That was in the Philippines," Carter said.In Memphis, 1,500 volunteers are working on the project, and they've traveled from all over. The recipients for the 19 homes have already been selected by Habitat for Humanity of Greater Memphis, and most have been out working on their own homes on the site.Damonic Davis has been working on her home all week. She and her two young kids have been living with her mom and sharing one room since Davis divorced a couple years ago. She and the others must put in 350 to 500 hours of sweat equity to qualify for the program."I've been divorced for about two years, and Habitat is helping me and my family get our very first house. It's giving me the ability to provide stability, financially and shelter-wise, for my children," Davis said.Carter said, earlier in the week, he met another Memphis Habitat house recipient who had been homeless and addicted to drugs just a few years back."He told me that seven years ago, he was living under a bridge. He was addicted to drugs, and he decided to turn his life around," Carter said. "He got a job at a fast food place, and now he's in charge of Chick-fil-A's kitchen. He told me about all the different sandwiches Chick-fil-A makes."The Carter project is helping Memphis Habitat complete their five-year commitment to build 50 homes and do 100 critical repairs in Uptown."We've already done 32, so this will put us over 50," said Habitat for Humanity of Greater Memphis President and CEO Dwayne Spencer.In addition to building 19 new homes, the Carter project is also working on 10 neighborhood beautification projects, like planting shrubs and grass and doing touch-up painting."We did a windshield survey of the community and identified houses that we thought needed some love and care. We knocked on doors and asked if they'd be receiving of it," Spencer said.They're also doing six "aging in place" projects, which means building ramps for seniors. That work is funded through the Plough Foundation.When asked why they chose Memphis this year, Carter took a moment to praise the Memphis Habitat organization."They offer a wide range of services that other Habitats don't provide. For example, if you're over 75 years old, and you have a broken window or a door that won't shut, [they'll fix it]. For instance, last year [when we were in Memphis], we worked on a house where one side of the living room was six inches lower than the other side because the foundation had rotted out."

President Jimmy Carter Discusses His Work with Habitat


A year ago this month, former President Jimmy Carter announced that he had a form of skin cancer that had spread to his brain. Just...


Beale Street is Tennessee's top tourist destination.
Tennessee tourism shattered records in 2015 with visitors here spending more than $18 billion, up 3.7 percent over 2014.State government officials announced the record in a news conference Tuesday morning at the Sevier County Courthouse near the iconic Dolly Parton statue.Tourism has topped $1 billion in state and local sales taxes for the last 10 years, officials said. Revenue last year was $1.6 billion, up $1.6 billion. Tourism jobs increased 2.9 percent for a total of 157,400.


Tennessee tourism shattered records in 2015 with visitors here spending more than $18 billion, up 3.7 percent over 2014.  State government officials announced the record...


click to enlarge Boyd
Both plaintiffs in the now-dismissed lawsuit against the Memphis City Council regarding the Greensward said Wednesday that they did not tell council member Berlin Boyd that the Overton Park Conservancy (OPC) played any role in their filing of the suit as he claimed Tuesday.Residents Dr. Susan Lacy and Stephen Humbert filed a suit against the city council earlier this year claiming the council broke state open meetings laws ahead of the March 1 vote that gave the Memphis Zoo a majority control of the 12-acre Greensward for overflow parking.The suit was recently dismissed after the council approved a plan to improve parking in Overton Park and end he zoo’s use of the Greensward for overflow parking.However, Boyd threatened to pull OPC’s current-year city funding if the plaintiffs in the case did not close a legal loop that might allow them to bring the case back to court. A resolution Boyd presented before the council’s Parks Committee read that “one of the plaintiffs” in the suit “has admitted to council members” that OPC provided them with the language and information for their lawsuit.Lacy and Humbert say that “is not true” and was a “completely false statement.”“I came to this as a private citizen who is concerned about the process and the way that that March 1 resolution was passed,” Lacy said Wednesday. “I had no conversation with anyone with the Overton Park Conservancy (about the suit) and have not had any conversations with the Overton Park Conservancy.”Humbert said, “From where I stand, it was a completely false statement that Berlin Boyd made. It does upset me that that was printed as being a fact that he knew and, indeed, it was not a fact.”“I can speak for myself and I’ve talked with Dr. Lacy and I can tell you that I did not speak of that — say that — to any person, human being because it’s not true.”Boyd ultimately dropped his resolution at the request of other council members.Boyd did not immediately respond to a call for comment.

Greensward Plaintiffs: Boyd's Statement 'Not True,' 'Completely False'


Both plaintiffs in the now-dismissed lawsuit against the Memphis City Council regarding the Greensward said Wednesday that they did not tell council member Berlin Boyd...


Infographic: Hand Gun Permits in Shelby County


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Oh my goodness ...The first person to correctly ID the dish and where I'm eating wins a fabulous prize.To enter, submit your answer to me via email at ellis@memphisflyer.com


Oh my goodness ...  The first person to correctly ID the dish and where I'm eating wins a fabulous prize.  To enter, submit your answer...


click to enlarge Governor Haslam
Governor Bill Haslam, in Memphis on Thursday to visit Winridge Elementary School to klick off a statewide tour of K-12 public schools, said he would call a special session of the legislature to look into amending a DUI law passed in the last session that raised permissible alcohol levels for 18- to 20-year old motorists.The National Highway Safety Administration has announced that the state is liable to lose 8 percent of its federal highway funding annually, or $60 million, as a result of raising the alcohol blood level from .02 per cent to .08 for the affected youthful motorists. The higher amount is in violation of the federal government’s zero tolerance policy for the 18-to-20 year-old group.“$60 million is too much money to give up,” Haslam told reporters. Noting that members of the state’s congressional delegation are negotiating with the federal government for some sort of compromise on the funding matter, the Governor said the legislature would have to act if those efforts failed.As of now, the change in funding is scheduled to begin in October.• The Governor also said, “I’m not a fan” of efforts to decriminalize recreational marijuana use, when asked about a pending ordinance before the Memphis City Council to allow police to give misdemeanor tickets rather than to make felony arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Haslam said, “I do think there are people spending more time in jail than they need to,” but he said outright decriminalization would not be a “helpful signal” in a state where drug abuse remains a problem.

Haslam, in Memphis, Suggests Calling Special Session


Governor says bill raising blood-alcohol levels for young motorists must be amended, or state could lose $60 million in federal funds; Haslam also "no fan" of decriminalizing marijuana.


Adicus Mitchell
The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) security guard responsible for pushing a passenger, which resulted in that passenger's death, has been placed on diversion for three years.On May 6th of last year, a bus driver at the North Main terminal alerted Mitchell that he had an unruly passenger on board, and Mitchell responded by forcefully pushing the passenger off the bus. The passenger, 69-year-old Robert Gray, landed face-first and lay motionless on the concrete.He was hospitalized in critical condition and later transferred to a long-term care facility. He died there from complications from his fall on August 3rd, 2014. Gray had been allegedly been making obscene remarks to a female passenger when the driver alerted Mitchell.Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee granted Mitchell's request for diversion, a type of probation that will erase the conviction from his record after three years of good behavior.

MATA Security Guard Placed on Diversion in Passenger Death


The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) security guard responsible for pushing a passenger, which resulted in that passenger's death, has been placed on diversion for...


click to enlarge To be, or not to be... framed?
So a muslim, a white liberal, a black, and a jew walk into a theater... And no, that's not the beginning of a joke that got someone shamed off Twitter. There's no regrettable punchline here unless, of course, you mean the punch in the gut delivered by Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize winning one-act play, which is available for local consumption at Circuit Playhouse through September4.And who doesn't love a good punch in the gut now and then?is a play you need to see if you're a fan of fine acting and/or argumentative, politically-charged drama. Irene Crist, who directed Circuit's vividly-realized production, has done her part to give the acclaimed show the life and wit it deserves. Still, I've got mixed feelings, no matter how much tough truth it spills in 90 overly-familiar, coincidence-packed minutes.The show is often described as being about cross-cultural identity and the obstacles facing Muslim-Americans post 9-11. But since the proscenium's frame turns the mundane into myth, so it also functions — less fortunately — as a domesticated metaphor for globalism, radicalization, and terrorism, with the latter part expressed as a shocking moment of rage-fueled violence.The story: Amir (Gregory Szatkkowski), is a hotshot Pakistani-American lawyer with a shot at becoming a partner at the prestigious Jewish law firm where he works harder than anybody. He's derailed when his artist wife Emily (Natalie Jones) talks him into helping an Imam who's been accused of raising money for extremists. It's not paranoia when people really are conspiring against you and after his name's associated with a suspected Islamic radical, the knives come out for Amir. He becomes increasingly (and understandably) agitated by snubs, and other signs that he's falling from favor professionally.Emily's an artist gunning for a show at the Whitney. She's also -in an unguarded moment- bedded Isaac, the Jewish man (Gabe Buetel-Gunn) who can make that show happen and who just happens to be married to the African American attorney (Jessica "Jai" Johnson) who, unbeknownst to Amir, has been given the partnership he was expecting. The hard-drinking dinner party that brings all these characters together to nibble on fennel and anchovy salad, plays out like a deconstruction ofas imagined byplaywright Yasmina Reza using snippets of a real life newspaper comment section argument for dialogue. Noteworthy too, in a trivia-conscious play about American identities, everybody eats pork.There are things you can be sure of. Like when somebody produces a gun on stage you can bet it will fire before the show's over. While there are no firearms in this play, there are linguistic equivalents, and they strongly telegraph certain outcomes. Similarly, it's common enough for certain kinds of plays to climax with seemingly openminded characters revealing their prejudices by shouting racially-charged epithets in a moment of rage. Those familiar with the trope may find themselves anticipating this ugly inevitability. Akhtar might be appropriating these things ironically and aiming for ritual, but the effect is a little closer to deja vous.Amir describes himself as an apostate and the Quran as hate mail to humanity stating, "There’s a result to believing that a book written about life in a specific society fifteen hundred years ago is the word of God: You start wanting to recreate that society... That’s why you have people like the Taliban. They’re trying to re-create the world in the image of the one that’s in the Quran." Events that follow result in a similar simulacrum, and Amir gives in to his scriptural destiny.There's a frustrating air of fatalism to, as atavistic pride bends toward violent predisposition. But never mind the complaints. Terrific casting and scenic design evocative of Manhattan privilege help make up for predictability, and naked provocation.picked up its Pulitzer in 2012 — a presidential election year, but not like this one. The newly-minted Tea Party, emboldened by it's reactionary, anti-Obama midterm success, was just starting to stir a white nationalistic pot of extreme conservatism that bubbled over into Donald J. Trump's 2016 campaign for the White House. Today's cast of characters represent a microcosm of that candidate's clearly defined enemies. There are brown people, black people, immigrants, "East Coast Intellectuals," and liberals "with blood coming out of their whatever," all gathered together in one place to rehearse — as it is written — their parts for the end of the world. And so a play that aims for hard questions and complexity begins to feel a bit like propaganda. Nevertheless, its clearer and cloudier moments will both leave audiences with questions of their own, and that may very well be the point.


So a muslim, a white liberal, a black, and a jew walk into a theater... And no, that's not the beginning of a joke that...


BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—The battle line has been drawn between Social and political activist
and president Peter Mutharika’s trusted aides Ben Phiri and his brother Martin Nkasala with the former accusing the two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) propagandists of smearing him on DPP’s owned online publication Malawi Independent.
Writing on his Facebook page on Tuesday, Chiza challenged the duo that he has the capacity to take down DPP government singlehandedly.
“I want to know who owns Malawi Independent, the names that have come up are those of my two friends Ben Phiri and Madalitso Martin Nkasala. I have confronted Nkasala to tell me who owns these Facebook pages that are character assassinating people who have disagreed with DPP and he denied knowing of it.
“So I will take his word but with a warning. I can take down DPP myself singlehandedly; I can go after Peter Mutharika so bad you will not stop me. But I have maintained my respect for the man because of our friendship. And it will stay that way.
“Your name and your brother’s name continue to show up as I search for idiots writing lies and attacking innocent women. I will meet you in person. Do not push me. Consider this a warning,” wrote Mkandawire.
Sources indicate that Mkandawire has become a subject of DPP’s propaganda pages’ smear after disagreements over donations to Beatify Malawi (Beam) from Hamra Oil Holdings where Mkandawire was previously working as CEO.
But Mkandawire said there is more than meets the eye.
“This is politically motivated. There is all politics in this as we run up to 2019 presidential elections,” he said.
A letter leaked from First Lady Gertrude Mutharika’s charity organization Beautify Malawi (Beam) Trust indicated that while Chiza Mkandawire was working at Hamra Oil Holdings as CEO, the First Lady asked for financial assistance.
It is said that Chiza released over K20 million and money was being shared among the officials of the Trust.
In a letter, the First Lady had advised that assistance should be channeled through presidential chief economic and special adviser Dr. Collins Magalasi who is vice board chairperson of the trust or Chimango Chirwa, Mayamiko Mwinjilo, Chairperson of Finance and Fundraising Sub-Committee or Mrs. Nazma Ismail, Board Member.
However, it is indicate that after noting that money from Hamra was being deposited in personal accounts, Chiza stopped any donations from Hamra to Beam which triggered the souring of relations with the powers that be.
Martina Nkasala, who graduated from Mzuzu University with a Bachelor degree in education (humanities) and worked with Malawi Savings Bank as mere Bank teller, has become a millionaire overnight after working with DPP for just two years.
He is alleged to be one of the DPP propagandists manufacturing false stories against innocent people who disagree with the ruling party, and their main platform is Malawi Voice and the newly established Malawi Independent.

Malawi activist insults Presidential Aids calling them “idiots” while promising to topple ruling DPP government


BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)— Justice Micheal Mtambo has slapped for former minister of justice Ralph Kasambara with 13 years jail term on the count of conspiracy to murder former budget director Paul Mphwiyo.
Kasambara’s fellow convicts in the case, Pika Manondo and McDonald Kumwembe, have been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for attempted murder and 11 years for conspiracy to murder Mphwiyo.
The two will serve a total of 26 years in prison since their sentences will run consecutively.
Kasambara was convicted of conspiring to murder Mphwiyo alongside former Malawi Defence Force (MDF) soldier Macdonald Kumwembe and businessperson Pika Manondo who faced a separate charge of attemptingto murder the former budget director.
Mphwiyo’s shooting at the gate of his Area 43 residence in Lilongwe is believed to have exposed Cashgate, the plunder of public resources at Capital Hill.The case, which started in 2013, has been marred with hurdles ranging from application for recusals from defence, defence being thrown back into jail for contempt of court and other excuses.
Meanwhile, the defence is asking for bail in view of the fact that the three are appealing against conviction but Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) is objecting to bail.

Mphwiyo shooting case: Former Malawi Justice Minister Kasambara sentenced to 13 years in prison as Kumwembe, Manondo handed 26 years


Your Excellency,
I am an ordinary citizen of this country with only a pen as a means to communicate to you. I want to assure you that if I had the opportunity to convey this message privately, I would have done so. But the privilege of a private audience being remote, I will have no choice but to reach you thus.
Your Excellency, I have raised two issues via this letter:
a) the nepotism and cronyism that your government believes in and, b) your failure to lead the fight against corruption by happily presiding over a corrupt Cabinet.
a) Blatant nepotism:
Your Excellency, this country is not for few individuals only. It is for all of us: those from the South, North, East, West and Centre are all one people and one nation.
It is therefore disturbing that when it comes to appointments, one discerns a deliberate policy of appointing cronies and relations.
Your Excellency, via this policy, you are running this country as a tribal warlord and not a states man.
Few examples, in Diplomatic Appointments, substantiate my point as below:
In the UK embassy, you sent a daughter to our Information Minster Patricia Kaliati.
You, Your Excellency, also sent to the same Embassy a son to the National Intelligence Bureau Director Nicolas Dausi.
Your Excellency, the son of your Political Affairs Director Francis Mphepo is also there.
. Nephew to Minister Chaponda is an accountant at the United Nations Embassy
As if this is not enough, you have sent wife to the Minister of Labour and manpower development Henry Mussa as an Ambassador in Kenya.
Your Excellency you have also sent daughter to the same Minister Henry Musa as a diplomat in Zimbabwe.
When we talk of your own relations, then we have Mr Namonde who is our diplomat in China and many of your relations are different positions both home as well as abroad.
Your Excellency, your propaganda people have been misinforming Malawians that your government is recalling diplomats to save money when the fact is that you are just replacing those recalled with your relations and your cronies’ kin.
The numbers have not gone down at all. A few examples again, Your Excellency will help validate my point:
You recalled John Tembo Junior only to be replaced by someone from your Lomwe belt.
In case you may not have heard Your Excellency, the joke is on you. There are, in the diplomatic circles, a story that only Lhomwes are being appointed because Lhomwe is the only Malawian language that the Chinese, Germans, the British, the Swiss, the Americans, Zimbabweans, Ethiopians and the Brazilians understand; hence this sickly nepotistic trend in appointing people only from one belt.
Jokes aside Your Excellency, our missions abroad aside, your cronyism seems incurable because the trend here back home is the same.
A few illustrations Sir:
Minister of Gender and Child welfare Jean Kalilani has her nephew if not her son Mgeme Kalirani, a diploma holder, as State House Press Officer and for the other son, you even acted ultra vires to appoint him to the FIU.
Your cunning special aide, Ben Phiri, who is playing low profile but still calling the shots, has a brother, Martin Nkasala as one of your aides on International Affairs and the beneficiaries of almost all scholarships are going to Ben Phiri’s relations.
Your Excellency, the daughter to Minister Chaponda is calling the shots at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Ironically, most of these people are not qualified and can’t perform to bring home the much needed investors. You are doing a disservice to this nation.
If Your Excellency this is not the height of nepotism and cronyism, then what is it?
Are you telling us that only your cronies and their daughters and sons are the only people who can serve this country? Is this fair? Why can’t you show that you are a national leader by accommodating all of us?
Remember your Excellency that you are the President of Malawi and not a tribal warlord.
Whether people from the Northern region did not vote for you, they still call you their president and pay taxes. Whether people from the Central region did not vote for you, you remain their president and they pay taxes.
Your Excellency, whether some people like you or not, you are their president and even those that dislike you, pay taxes.
The moment you took that oath, you became the president of our republic. Please show us that you are the president for all and rise above the warlord status you have demeaned yourself to.
b) Presiding over a corrupt Cabinet:
Your Excellency, you recently admitted what the outgoing queen’s diplomat Michael Nevin said that corruption is worsening during your administration.
Of late, we have seen you exchanging ultimatums with Kamlepo Kaluwa on the same subject. On social media Your Excellency, the names of the seven corrupt cabinet Ministers are being mentioned of which the name of George Chaponda is featuring highly.
I am not here to give credit to such reports but I want to make a different case to show you that suspicious actions by your Agriculture Minister George Chaponda point not only strongly but so strongly to the direction that he is a corrupt individual who must be fired if your administration is to be taken serious in the fight against corruption.
Your Excellency, we have learnt via credible news sources that George Chaponda then as Minister of Foreign Affairs wrote you a letter on 14th January, 2015, REF: EA/1/B5541 instructing you to have our Ambassador to the United Nations Brian Bowler transferred from New York to Rio, Brazil as an Ambassador in that country.
To make his decision sound normal, the powerful Chaponda, we hear you are grooming him for 2019 Presidency, moved the Ambassador who had just been dispatched to Brazil Edward Sawerengera to Washington DC and have Necton Mhura who was also settling down in Washington DC to the United Nations to replace Bowler.
Your Excellency, you may wish to know that the reason behind all these transfers engineered by Chaponda was to protect his corrupt practices he engineered at the United Nations which he feared Ambassador Bowler would expose.
Chaponda, Your Excellency, embezzled money meant for the United Nations peacekeeping troops from Malawi.
Your Excellency, you are implicated in this embezzlement because due to your unfettered nepotism, you appointed Chaponda’s nephew at the UN Embassy, as an Accountant.
All your foreign affairs Minister, then Chaponda had to do was to connive with his nephew to embezzle huge amounts of money meant for the Soldiers and as we are talking now, Malawian soldiers who went for UN Keeping missions are still struggling to have their stipends paid because of Chaponda’s greed.
Your Excellency, all this information is in public domain at the United Nations. When Bowler learnt about this, reports in the media say he alerted his immediate boss (Chaponda) to report the matter to ACB. Your Minster took almost 5 months to say a word on this.
Media reports indicate that Bowler alerted the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on the issue and the compromised ACB stayed as quiet as expected. It could be anybody’s guess to say on whose orders the ACB stayed quiet for these days, we are seeing your cronies partying hard even when they have warrant of arrests hanging on their heads to be arrested by the ACB on different alleged corrupt practices.
Back to the issue, it is said that the only official reaction Bowler got from Your Minister was a letter informing him that he will be shipped to Brazil. One wonders if it is the policy your government to punish, demote or redeploy those who resist or report corruption.
Your Excellency, as your minister was pursuing his own agenda; his erratic decision-making, is evidence of his efforts to cover his tracks.
Just imagine Your Excellency, we hear in the media that Edward Sawerengera was only 4 months when he was being told that he will relocate to Washington DC and Nectorn Mhura was one year old when he was told to relocate to the United Nations while Ambassador Bowler was only 18 months at the time of this decision from Chaponda.
Your Excellency, can such host countries as USA, Brazil and UN take your judgment capacity very seriously when you send them a diplomat, and few months later, you transfer that diplomat and bring in a new one?
Are you telling us that the Parliamentary Public Appointment Committee (PAC) did a bad job in approving these Ambassadors to head to their initial approved diplomatic destinations?
Again one would look at the other important issues as the diplomat’s productiveness to the Malawi nation. It is my considered belief, Your Excellency that these diplomats were beginning to settle down in their respective missions.
They were beginning to know the people around them. These diplomats were building momentum in their respective missions and all over a sudden, Minister Chaponda, decides to break the momentum by relocating them.
Is this how a serious government geared at helping the poor Malawians should be taking its important decisions?
And let’s consider the money that will be spent in relocating these Ambassadors; moving their properties up and down. Is it not huge that it could help solve the numerous challenges in our country if someone advised you Your Excellency in good faith?
Against the above analysis, I submit that no any reasonable person in his capacity as Foreign Affairs Minister would have made such a costly decision. Only a Foreign Affairs Minister in George Chaponda entangled in such serious corrupt practices and determined to abuse his super powers in this current administration to settle personal scores would have made such decision.
After all, he was covering his corrupt tracks from being exposed.
Your Excellency, this is why Chaponda, with all these strong allegations, must be sacked and let ACB investigate him. Unfortunately, it appears Chaponda is untouchable as we hear he has officially attained the lucrative position as your new puppet master.
Your Excellency, it is surprising that Chaponda could be making such important decisions of relocating diplomats at will as if we Malawians elected him as the republican President.
Your Excellency, the supposed super power that Chaponda is possessing in this administrations give credence to your fierce critiques who brand you a Puppet. I hear they recently upgraded their way of describing you Your Excellency. They now call you a classic post turtle all this referring to you as someone who depends on others to make decisions.
Your Excellency you have a choice now to prove those who have almost proved that you depend on others to make decisions wrong by sacking Chaponda. If you leave him undisciplined, trust me that you will leave a tattered legacy and posterity won’t be fair with you.
Your Excellency, this nepotism got to stop. Your Excellency please learn to be decisive and fire such ministers stained with corrupt allegations as in George Chaponda. Have them investigated by an independent ACB.
If you stop nepotism and if show zero tolerance on corruption; this country will be on a right path to development. The choice is yours. Its either you take heed of this advice or continue with the status quo.
Sincerely Yours,
Gospel Kamzati
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this letter are those of the author. For any feedback; feel free to write the author on this email address: gkamzati@gmail.com

Open letter to Malawi Pres. Mutharika: Corruption, Cronyism and Nepotism are costing you more than you think


Chatinkha Chidzanja Nkhoma a royalty in the MCP ranks herself has joined those calling for the ouster of Leader Lazarus Chakwera. The calls from Chatinkha who has amassed great wealth from real Estate deals appear to have stung. Following those calls the schism in the MCP appears to have gotten wider.
Last week Chatinkha joined some 20 district chairpersons at a press briefing in Lilongwe where they accused Lazarus Chakwera of being a dictator who is running the party using parallel structures.
The district chairpersons who constitute more than half of the whole district chairpersonship across the country have been fighting Lazarus Chakwera for months now through open defiance and legal means.
They have been pushing through the courts to have Chakwera secede power at an emergency convention which he also must convene using his powers.
Among the many accusations leveled against him, the Reverend Lazarus Chakwera is accused of concentrating power within Lilongwe and Dedza districts and appointing close cronies to national executive positions that can only be legally filled through a convention.
Critics of Lazarus Chakwera have however found the going tough as his supporters are prone to violence and have in the past attacked those calling for his stepping down from his leadership position.
Just last month Jessie Kabwira’s vehicle was set on fire and many are suspecting it was from the supporters of the Reverend, unhappy with her siding with those calling for his sharing power instead of the autocratic leadership he has shown.
Another legislator who also faces unceasing terror is Felix Jumbe who on several occasions has been roughed up for simply attending church functions or political rallies where Chakwera is also present.
Lazarus Chakwera rose to the party leadership position in 2013 from nowhere during a convention at which he surprised John Zenas Ungapake Tembo.

Chatinkha Chidzanja Nkhoma calls for the ouster of MCP Leader Lazarus Chakwera


BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Rumphi East member of Parliament (People’s Party-PP) and PP third vice-president, Kamlepo Kalua, triggered the issue. He strongly challenged the government that seven serving cabinet ministers are implicated in the K233 billion cashgatescandal, but President Peter Mutharika and the Auditor General Stephenson Kamphasa completely trashed Kalua’s allegations.“Let me make it clear that there is no minister being implicated or involved in any case or indeed the so-called seven case files. According to the report, it says there is need for further investigations for all case files. These case files are for businesses not linked to any minister of government officer,” Kamphasa said.
“I therefore, would like to distance myself from the issue of cabinet ministers being implicated or involved as there is no evidence unless those who say so have other evidence that I do not have,” he said.
However, the country’s graft bursting body Anti-Corruption Bureau’s comment on the matter is obviously food for thought for patriotic Malawians and of course a lesson toMutharika and Kamphasato stop handling public debates as family matters.
Answering to a question on whether serving cabinet ministers are implicated in the plundering of public funds, ACB spokesperson EgritaNdala told ZBS on Monday that they cannot give an outright ye or no to the question.
“We can’t give an outright answer on whether seven serving cabinet ministers are implicated in the K233 billion cashgate scandal,” said Ndala.
She, however, said that the bureau is doing a thorough analysis of the 13 case files in its custody to determine pursuable cases.
Meanwhile, Kalua has given President Peter Mutharika 24-hour ultimatum to remove immunity of seven serving Cabinet ministers implicated in the recent cashgate forensic audit report.
Kalua, who is also Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) vice-chairperson, made the demand on Sunday Roundtable Discussion on Capital Radio.
He said Mutharika, who also gave the legislator 24-hour ultimatum last week Monday to disclose names of rotten ministers, has until Monday to act on his cronies implicated in the cashgate scandal.
“Let the President arrest them tomorrow (Monday),” said Kalua.

K233 billion cashgate scandal debate rages on: ACB says no outright answer to whether Cabinet ministers are implicated or not


Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. —Jack Welch.A tragedy of our time, those who are supposed to perceive lack the necessary insights to enable them design economic empowerment programs.
Real people of substance fight ideology or beliefs or systems not personalities. The danger for the later is that, there is the likelihood that you follow into a trap that the solution is to get rid of the personality but the ideology still lives on does not die with the person you are targeting. You only get a temporary relief.
Ideologies on human rights, democracy, governance and industriousness are there to stay not as an end in themselves but means to an end.
Our end is when we achieve our economic wellbeing for every Malawian. People begin to live a life well lived.
Three key factors that would make you declared poor: lack of Vision and Hope, lack of goods to sale to willing buyer and lack of skills and expertise to offer your services for a wage.
All farmers have goods that the sale every year all they need is market and financial support and if adequately supported being in the majority Malawi can easily become a middle income country
Economic liberation is real.
Those who suppress human rights, democracy, governance and industriousness are actually enemies of economic liberation. Their prosperity is at the expense of the majority who suffer in poverty. Poverty makes people lose their rights.
When all people in the economy are both politically and economical liberated we all become equal, the ideal that I stand for and God made us equal.
Wealth Creation is the means to get people equal it is the ideal that incorporates human rights, democracy, governance, systems approach and industriousness as a means for mass economic empowerment to attain the equality of human beings.
Only hard work, adoption of technologies can bring economic liberation for Malawi and everyone has a role to play. Let us change our destiny.
I wish I was understood.
Felix Jumbe-Member of Parliament for Salima Central Constituency

Malawi needs politically and economically liberated minds to depart from immerse poverty


After the recent earthquake in Ecuador Prophet.T.B. Joshua and Emmanuel TV Partners reached out by chartering a cargo plane which carried 20 tonnes of emergency relief to distressed areas affected by the devastating earthquake. Apart from bringing immediate relief aid, rebuilding of a school and other constructions are taking place. An Israeli rescue and relief organization recognized by the United Nations, ZAKA had taken cognizance of this and numerous other charitable deeds done by Prophet T.B. Joshua and the Emmanuel TV Team.
ZAKA’s chairman, Rabbi Yehuda Meshi Zahav came to The SCOAN last week and escorted Prophet T.B. Joshua to Israel to award him for his efforts and to also invite him to partner with them to advance the work of God in the nation Israel.
During his visit, Prophet T.B. Joshua held meetings with a number of government officials, including the Mayor of Bethlehem – Mrs Vera Baboun, Mr Ayoob Kara – the Deputy Minister of Regional Cooperation in the Government of Israel and his team, Ambassador Ran Ichay – Senior Deputy Director to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mr Rafi Eitan – Former Mossad Intelligence Officer, who hosted the Prophet in his home.
After his visit to Israel, Prophet T.B. Joshua stopped in Greece where he visited Biblical sites including the City of Philippi where Paul and Silas were jailed and released after singing praise to God while in chains. He took some moments to pray for viewers whilst at this holy place. Indeed, for those whose lives are centered on Christ the best is always yet to come.
SOURCE: TB Joshua Ministries Facebook Page – http://www.facebook.com/tbjministries

TB Joshua Receives Humanitarian Award In Israel


LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The Malawi Electoral Commission Chairperson Justice Maxon Mbendera has died. The MEC Chief died of cardiac arrest upon arrival at a hospital after collapsing during a meeting in Lilongwe on Thursday.
According to hospital sources, Mbendera was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation by first aiders House Hotel before taken to the hospital.
But he died while doctors attempted to save his life.
Both Judiciary spokespersons Mlenga Mvula and MEC spokesman Sangwani Mwafulirwa confirmed the sudden death of the Supreme Court justice.
Mwafulirwa described the incident as shocking death.
Mbendera will be remembered as a man who broke down in tears as he presided over the announcement of presidential results in 2014.
The late MEC chairperson once confessed that he had an emotional attack after realising that he was about to make a declaration that would spark wild celebrations for the winning party when one family elsewhere was mourning.
He was referring to the man who died in Mangochi during electoral protests earlier in the day.
Mbendera said he was afraid that the violence in Mangochi would escalate nationally.

MEC Chief Maxon Mbendera dies of cardiac arrest while chairing meeting


EXPAND Courtesy of Cohen Media Group
Like the rambling fixer-upper at its heart, Merchant Ivory's Howards End has aged quite well, and not just because of the brightened-up 4K restoration from Cohen Media Group. It's brisk and funny, prim but open-minded, testy about pomposity even as it exemplifies what once was the most pompous of all movie genres. (Who would have thought that superhero films, now so groaningly self-important, would in this regard surpass Brit-lit adaptations?) This unabashedly middlebrow costume drama might stand now as a more impressive achievement than when it first racked up raves and awards in '92. That's partly due to the way the studios have decayed in the years since. When is the last time that Hollywood assembled a cast this strong to act out a story this adult and this thoughtful, then staged and shot it with such urgent confidence? And good lord, behold all those sumptuous early ‘90s curls!
For all its class-studies seriousness and third-act melodramatics, the film — the third E.M. Forster adaptation from director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant — is first of all a charmer. The sublime epigrammatic chatter of its heroines (“One wouldn't want to keep bumping into Wilcoxes!”) is an unpoisoned precedent for Love & Friendship's Lady Susan, and somehow, back at the dawn of the first Clinton era, the thought of two progressive sisters being the center of a top-shelf awards-season prestige picture didn't seem like a brave step forward, as it might today. Neither did the moment when Helena Bonham Carter's Helen, a brilliantly unreasonable young woman who comes to take each of the world's injustices personally, shuts down Anthony Hopkins' stuffed-shirt patriarch just as his mansplaining starts. “Word of advice,” his Henry Wilcox says, more toward her than to her, but Helen is already snapping back: “I need no word of advice!” The way her extravagant brows knit up, you'd hush, too, even if she weren’t already hauling herself out of earshot. In '92 it was possible, I guess, to expect that such stories and such moments would not continue to be Hollywood's exceptions.
Ivory only occasionally indulges in the production-value pageantry that’s so often characteristic of the genre. An early scene set in a garage has Bonham Carter and Joseph Bennett calling off their characters' love affair while posing about a gleaming antique roadster, as if some exec vowed, "If we're not giving American men nudity, we must at least give them cars." But there's little leaden or parade-like, here.
The superior first half is given over to lively incident rather than plot, with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's script — adapted from Forster’s 1910 novel — reeling through gently comic episodes and never quite making clear just who its protagonist is until the second act. First, in the country, a middle-class young woman (Bonham Carter) falls for the scion of the Wilcoxes, a haughty, somewhat constipated land-owning family, the sort of swells who always look as if they smell a stink people poorer than them can't. Then, a little embarrassed, Bonham Carter's Helen just calls the whole thing off. Months later, in London, she accidentally makes off with a broke clerk's umbrella, which results in much amusing to-do, and the clerk — Leonard Bast (Samuel West) — demurs an invitation to tea after being “swamped by screaming women.”
These are the Schlegels, played by Emma Thompson — the elder sister, and the one who wryly speaks that swamped line — and Bonham Carter. Thompson's Margaret stars in the next vignette, a tender idyll: When the Wilcoxes move into London for the season, occupying a flat just across the way, Margaret strikes up a surprising friendship with Ruth (Vanessa Redgrave), the family's ailing grand dame and the wife of Hopkins' Henry, representing in Forster's scheme an idea of how women used to be before the minor liberations of the Edwardian age. Margaret slows her talk down when alone with Ruth, but she never tempers herself — and she's much too nice to object when Ruth admits, at a lively luncheon, “I am only too thankful not to have the vote myself.”
Redgrave's performance is a slow heartbreaker — Ruth yearns for simpler times, but only finds true kinship with someone unrelated to and unlike her. Thompson beams at Redgrave, her Margaret touched and troubled but also stirred. All Ruth's talk of domesticity — of the empty, unfashionable family home Howards End — awakens a longing in Margaret, a subtly revealed certainty that Helen's life of London lectures and discussion societies isn't all that she wants. (Thompson won an Oscar for her role.)
EXPAND Courtesy of Cohen Media Group
If you've not seen the film or read the novel, you might be jolted, several scenes after Ruth's death, at widower Henry Wilcox's awkward, out-of-nowhere marriage proposal to Margaret — and at her stunned acceptance. Rather than say yes, she tells him to write to her and backs slowly down the staircase away from him. Then, when he's gotten the wrong idea, she lets him approach and mushes her face to his for one of cinema's most strained smooches. The question of whether she loves him is never quite answered in the film, although the cautious warmth in later scenes between Thompson and Hopkins suggests that Margaret is getting more from the arrangement than wealth and stability.
Thompson is brilliant in some third-act confrontations with Hopkins, showing us how Margaret struggles to be the Schlegel she was and the Wilcox she's becoming — and how she has learned to anticipate and manage his moods and upper-class prejudices. She reveals, with the faintest hint of desperation, what Margaret has lost, but also that she hasn't sacrificed her strength, conviction, or even her independence.
Helen, meanwhile, evolves offscreen, mostly, and we're not privy to her moment-to-moment thinking the way we are to Margaret's. Helen grows ever more rash and angry, lashing out at Henry in ways viewers might find satisfying. But she's stuck with the mother of all do-gooding naïf storylines, first advising that poor clerk to quit his job based on a tip from Henry, and then, when that advice proves terrible, dragging the clerk (and the older woman, played by Nicola Duffett, whom he charitably passes off as his wife) around England with her as she demands that Henry, soon to be her brother-in-law, make some kind of amends.
Just like real-life poor folks, Bast and his lady friend are not doing better than they were in '92. An early scene between them is straight-up terrible: She's the kind of fallen woman who, 30 years before Forster was writing, Victorian novelists would have packed off to Australia. In her first appearance, she tries to entice Leonard to bed with her, but the romantic young man — smitten with Helen, whom he just met via the umbrella imbroglio — insists on reading instead, as he's committed to improving herself. Eventually she prevails, but Ivory plays this capitulation as somehow tragic. One of the story’s most moving aspects is Margaret's ahead-of-her-time understanding that a sexual history doesn't damn a person. The most dated — and disappointing — failing of this Howards End is that every coupling it depicts or alludes to seems to strike the filmmakers as evidence of weakness rather than passion.
Still, though: The film remains an enticing, elegant pleasure, alive with light and talk. A recurring image throughout it is that of a lonely person gazing through a window, inside or out, at people on the other side enjoying fellowship and warmth — that's what watching this often feels like, especially in those rich, loose early episodes.

Don't Miss a Visit to Howards End, a Film That Remains the Best of Its Kind


Howards End remains an enticing, elegant pleasure, alive with light and talk.


Courtesy of Netflix/Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation
The sarcastic wag who first drawled the phrase "as exciting as watching grass grow" never intended it as a compliment. But have you ever actually watched grass grow? I mean, I haven’t either, but there must be a pretty cool hidden world of fresh-smelling earth and tickly dew and bugs and stuff down there. And maybe if we could watch blades of grass growing in such extreme close-up, we’d become so invested in the upward progress of those little suckers that we couldn’t tear ourselves away.
Watching Slow TV, the Norwegian phenomenon now streaming on Netflix, is like watching grass grow; whether or not you’re excited by this prospect depends on your patience for the microscopic view. The commercial-free Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) launched Slow TV (Sakte-TV) in 2009 with an unedited seven-hour broadcast of a train ride from Bergen to Oslo, shot from the perspective of the train driver. The show became a national obsession, leading to more live TV marathons that grew successively more ambitious and eccentric in both length and choice of subject: 12 hours devoted to chopping and burning wood; 18 hours of salmon fishing; 134 hours, broadcast around the clock, of a cruise along the Norwegian coast.
Nothing is too slow or mundane for Slow TV, which is part of its charm. Sure, you can treat any of the 11 episodes available on Netflix as background noise. But if you commit your full attention (no checking social media or sorting laundry), Slow TV can be a meditative, captivating experience. As you watch Bergen to Oslo, the seven-hour train ride (even in small segments), forests, suburbs, stations and several-minutes-long black tunnels float by, the tracks stretching into the distance from your cab’s-eye view. With only ambient train noise for a soundtrack, it’s easy to zone out into a peaceful traveler’s headspace. This is so much more pleasant than Amtrak. Or Ambien.
Netflix’s other Slow TV titles focus deeply on everyday Norwegian life (with English subtitles). If your experience of Norway is limited (like mine) to the Winter Olympics and Monty Python’s Dead Parrot pining for the fjords, then the series makes for a fascinating cultural immersion. Skip the disappointing hour-long condensed versions Northern Railway, Northern Passage and Salmon Fishing (nothing you couldn’t see on PBS), and go straight to National Firewood Evening, which is, in the words of its sensibly bundled-up host Rebecca Nedregotten Strand, “12 hours of live transmission about firewood — it’s basically crazy!” Norwegians, we learn, take their wood seriously. “It ignites sparks in us. It creates flaming passions,” exclaims Nedregotten Strand. A firewood historian observes, “Without it, nobody could bear living in this cold country.”
Courtesy of Netflix/Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation
The wintry, four-hour episode is like a telethon for wood, minus the begging for donations. Logs have not been this lovingly photographed since Twin Peaks. We learn how to chop them, stack them in aesthetically pleasing piles, safely burn them. The woodfest continues with National Firewood Night and National Firewood Morning, which together make up what is basically eight hours of the Yule Log of Christmases past (the original slow TV). Except that this roaring fire’s musical accompaniment forsakes Bing Crosby for many different versions of — what else? — “Norwegian Wood.”
National Knitting Morning, National Knitting Evening and National Knitting Night are also wrapped up in Nordic pride — and wool, so much wool. This earnest, weirdly compelling 12-hour package features knitters (mostly women) who are as passionate about casting and stitching as the wood-lovers are about fires. The participants, in fabulous handmade sweaters and scarves, yarn-bomb a Harley and discuss the meaning behind Norway’s many national knitting patterns. A sheep is shorn. An attempt is made to break the world record for spinning wool. The show is as comfortingly rustic as the clicking of knitting needles.
Netflix might have missed an opportunity, though, by not offering the 2014 Slow TV broadcast Piip-show (“Peep Show”), 14 hours of birds visiting camera-rigged feeders that have been cunningly designed to resemble a miniature coffee shop and quaintly furnished apartments. (You can view the archived Piip-show on the NRK website.) In the U.S., similar live-streamed nature look-ins have become popular among those of us stuck working on computers all day; we open tabs to watch otter cams, falcon cams, puffin cams, hoping for an escape from the overstimulating — yet often unsatisfying — flow of noise that is life lived online.
That daydream of escape is Slow TV’s greatest attraction. The series invites you to connect with nature without going outside, to virtually experience the satisfaction of crafting something useful with your hands while sitting on your ass doing work that produces nothing tangible. It’s all a bit ironic and sad, but never mind. There’s a train to Oslo leaving the station right now, and it needs a driver. How can you resist?

Netflix and Norway Invite You to Binge on Knitting and Woodcutting


Slow TV is so much more pleasant than Amtrak. Or Ambien.


FARGO — They're in most everyone's wallets, but the next generation of credit and debit cards aren't accepted everywhere — long after the deadline for merchants to stop swiping and start reading chips.
EMV cards, short for Europay-Mastercard-Visa, have been around since 1994 and used in many countries since the early 2000s. But the cards, which have an embedded chip that encrypts transactions and boosts security, are relatively new in America.
Switching to EMV has been in the works for years, gaining urgency with big data breaches, including the 2013 Target breach that affected 40 million customers.
Instead of requiring the change, the U.S. opted for a liability shift on Oct. 1, 2015 — after that, merchants unwilling or unable to accept new cards were liable for fraudulent charges when the lower-tech magnetic stripes were swiped.
"The risk is not that big yet, but it's growing," said Dan Fisher, president and CEO of Fargo-based technology and payment consulting firm Copper River Group.
Nearly 11 months later, Fisher said only half of America's point-of-sale terminals accept chip payment.
Slow change
Even merchants that want EMV might not be capable yet, according to Bill Russell, executive vice president of banking services for Bell Bank.
Heavy demand led to long delays in getting new equipment, he said, while chains might require companywide software upgrades before the new readers work.
"It's a combination of all those things that has made the accessibility that's out there so low," he said.
It's also a complicated and time-consuming change, according to Carrie Lick, interim deposit administration and serving solutions manager for Gate City Bank.
"There's more involved than just plugging it in and dipping your card," she said. "Retailers have to install special software and go through a certification process."
Fisher said the processors that merchants and financial institutions use for card transactions are a big reason for the delayed rollout. Many processors weren't ready on time or have been slow to change.
That's why customers may be asked to swipe their card even when a store has chip-reading terminals — the machine is ready, but the processor or store software isn't.
Banks generally wanted EMV as early as possible because of the liability shift, Fisher said. That's a big deal when card fraud topped $11 billion globally in 2012 and counterfeit card fraud was on the rise in America.
In countries that went to EMV, banks saw a 40 to 50 percent cut in debit card fraud, he said.

Many merchants still swiping long after deadline to switch to new credit, debit card technology


The workshop I did with Joanna was a very personal project because I’m addicted to ceramics. I think I inherited an interest; my grandfather collected Meissen and Sèvres porcelain. I started collecting pots about 10 years ago and have around 500 now. I collect Joanna, Hans Coper, Lucy Rie, Irish ceramicist Sarah Flynn and Ian Godfrey. Everything and anything, primarily British. It’s an addiction. I don’t always have them all out but I like to study them. I take pictures of them, I research through them. I like the links between the ceramicists, in their work, in the language which they build.
The brand is all about collaboration, trying to engage with people and enrich what we are about. I want to learn about different things and give platforms to different people, just as I have been given a platform. We don’t work with everyone I’m obsessed with, but we work with people – the photographers Jamie Hawkesworth and Ian David Baker, the art ceramicist Giles Round – who have strong voices.
I have always liked the idea of setting up a shop or workshop that would be a foundation for JW Anderson the brand but would collaborate with someone in a different craft field each month. I feel that how you create, or encourage one another to create, is hugely exciting.
How did the JW Anderson workshops come about? Jonathan Anderson I’m obsessed with the painter and critic Roger Fry who was head of the Omega Workshops, a design collective founded as part of the Bloomsbury Group in 1913. It’s where Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Fry gathered artists to paint furniture, make ceramics and stained glass, and do things like writing and typography. Some of the arts overlapped and some of them didn’t.
The potter and ceramicist Joanna Wason grew up in Bideford, Devon and studied at the Exeter and Liverpool schools of art. She moved to Cornwall in 1976 and 12 years later was approached by Janet Leach to work as her studio assistant at the Leach Pottery in St Ives, which she did until Janet’s death in 1997. One of the studio’s last staff potters until it closed in 2005, she now works from her own studio near St Just in Cornwall.
Jonathan Anderson , the 31-year-old designer was born in Ireland. He studied menswear at the London College of Fashion and founded his eponymous label JW Anderson shortly after graduation in 2008. He added womenswear to the brand in 2010. In 2013 he was appointed creative director of the LVMH-owned Spanish luxury house Loewe, where he has since initiated a craft prize. He was awarded men’s and womenswear designer of the year at the British Fashion awards in 2015.
‘The workshops I did with Joanna were a very personal project because I’m addicted to ceramics’
How did you find Joanna Wason?
JA Because ceramics have become a become kind of a crazy obsession, anyone reading about ceramics will eventually come across Bernard Leach, and the Leach pottery in St Ives. It has an incredible history. It was founded by Leach and Shoji Hamada in 1920 during a period when the area became the epicentre of British art and craft. It was where artists like Barbara Hepworth, Naum Gabo and Christopher Wood came to redefine British art. And where the Naive artist and fisherman Alfred Wallis was rediscovered by the painter [and Hepworth’s husband] Ben Nicholson. I’ve always admired this idea of an artistic community. So when I was in St Ives, I went to the Leach pottery and there I came across Joanna’s work. And I kind of fell in love with her…
Joanna Wason I’ve been with the Leach pottery for 29 years. My husband was working for Bernard and Janet Leach, and one day Janet asked if I might like to go and help her do something. We got on like a house on fire and so I stayed mixing glazes and all kinds of thing.
I was Janet’s workshop assistant for the last nine years of her life, and when she died I stayed on to make my own pots. The Leach pottery is a different thing now. It’s a charity and it’s got a new studio. The old workshop where I was is now a museum.
I didn’t even know that Jonathan had bought some of my pots at auction until I read about it. And then I got an email asking me to do a collaboration. The brief they gave me was to create anything, and any number of things.
You produced 53 pieces for this collaboration. Were you inspired by Jonathan’s work?
JW The fashion world was completely new to me. Jonathan invited me to the JW Anderson catwalk show in February and it was amazing – the most inventive thing, absolutely incredible. But I think the inspirations slipped in unconsciously rather than explicitly; some of my dishes were definitely inspired by his characteristic ruffle shape. He uses incredibly jazzy colours, so I took that, absolutely. And the splatter glaze was a new departure for me that Jonathan encouraged. Mainly though I took a lead from the general exuberance of Jonathan’s work.
Jonathan, have you ever used a particular pot or glaze as a specific reference for your design?
JA It’s never that literal, it’s more about how that object might interact with the world or the character that I see. The way I work is to put a person into a place and attract other things to it.
What makes craft so special?
JA It tells us where we are in a moment. Craft is integral to design, it’s how you learn what something is about, how it works, about the materials. I see photography as a craft as much as I see fashion as a craft.
JW Bernard’s founding principle was very much to do with using local materials, not over embellishing, gestural decoration. He loved mistakes. The beauty of ceramics is that if you can always bash it up and reuse the clay, you don’t feel precious about it. Some people are really clean potters but I’m always really disgusting.
How did the LVMH Loewe craft prize come about?
JA I felt it was important that craft be supported. It’s not just about galleries, it’s about supporting individuals so that they can create what they want to do. The prize closes at the end of the year and so far we’ve had 600 entries. They’ve come from all over the world, and include a huge range of ages and some famous names. It’s been interesting to find lots of different disciplines in the mix: weaving and furniture making, glassware, Japanese lacquer and silver enamelling. It’s kind of incredible.
How do you see fashion and craft interacting?
JW The craft world can be quite complacent. It can seem tiny, and there’s always the same conversation going on. Collaborations like these inject it with something fun, like blowing it up from the inside. I love it. I’m aware people talk about, is it art? Is it craft? I just listen from the side.
Do you see the current revival in craft skills as being part of a broader redefining of luxury?
JA You have to ignore the idea of the luxury market because it just doesn’t exist. Right now, we’re at a point where brands really need to de-brand: to go back to the core and take the veneer off which you can only do if you know what your hand is…
Does a focus on craft make you think differently about the way you manufacture?
JA For me, Loewe is a craft, and the way we make a lot of our product for JW Anderson is a craft – and we have to protect it. It’s sacrilege that Britain and Ireland have lost so many craft skills. The visibility of craft is important for culture. I set out to make Loewe a cultural brand, which for me meant garments should interact with our society. Fashion’s not one-dimensional. Today it’s more lifestyle driven, it’s more lifestyle led, it’s a mix of how we live.
Do you see yourself as a curator?
JA Kind of. I curate everything. My house is curated, my life is curated. I’m redoing my house because I want to be able to show the things I have, and so the team can come and use the library. As you get older you realise the house is one of the most important things.
What do you think it is about a pot that so enthrals?
JA I feel ceramics should be touched no matter how unique they are. I have coffee cups and things by famous potters and drinking from them is a different sensation: like that’s what it’s for. There’s also that brain-to-hand thing of making a ceramic which is very interesting: how you create a visual language through your hands.
JW Maybe it’s because it’s made out of clay, so it’s made out of mud, and it’s a complete thing when it’s finished. You don’t hang it on a wall, you use it. The best way you can find out if you like a pot is when you’re washing up, in the sink, because you hold it and feel it all over.
What’s so attractive about doing pottery is every time you open a kiln, there’s something you were relying on that lets you down, and something you thought might be dodgy that’s come out. The fire brings out things in the glazes that you weren’t expecting. It can be absolutely depressing, but I’ve got a rule never to be too depressed, because it’s only pots.
Follow Jonathan Anderson on Instagram: @jonathan.anderson


Brexit business impact tracker
See how Britain’s vote to leave the EU has affected companies from HSBC to easyJet. Which have announced job cuts and profit warnings – or committed to new UK investments and merger and acquisition deals?
This page records company announcements about the impact of Brexit on profits, jobs, mergers or investments, whether positive or negative. It does not include companies that say leaving the EU will have no effect on them.


Financial Times Brexit business tracker: see what companies have been affected so far


It happens about as often as an eclipse. OK, maybe that's an exaggeration. In this stat-astic video, see how often a college football team has started the preseason number one and finished the season with a ticker tape parade.

VIDEO - AP Poll: The Anomaly Of Starting, Finishing No. 1


VIDEO: Olympics - Best photos from August 18


General Motors is recalling nearly 368,000 vehicles to fix a defective part that could prevent the windshield wipers from working.
The problem affects the 2013 models of the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain. GM says those vehicles were built with ball joints that could corrode and wear out to render the windshield wipers inoperable.
A report filed with government regulators says a GM manager in Canada spotted the potential safety hazard last December. The auto manufacturer opened an investigation in March and decided to issue a recall earlier this month.
GM says it will cover the repair costs once it determines when it will be able to fix the problem.
Chevrolet Equinox owners can call 1-800-222-1020 and GMC Terrain can call 1-800-462-8782 for further information.

GM recalling about 368,000 vehicles to fix windshield wipers


The Journal Gazette, as Fort Wayne and northeast Indianas largest newsgathering operation, is your best source of local news, sports, business, dining and entertainment information as well as comprehensive auto, home, jobs and classified ads.


Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb is now up on the air with television ads supporting his run for governor.
The move came just a month after he was chosen as the GOP nominee in a special caucus following Gov. Mike Pence's departure from the race.
In the ad - "Called to Serve" - Holcomb talks directly to camera about his joining the U.S. Navy after college. It is interspersed with Desert Storm footage and other patriotic images.
"Serving in the Navy certainly changed my life," he says in the ad. "It not only made me a much more disciplined individual but it also, it really taught me that everyone is as important as the other person.
"Boot Camp is the great equalizer. It really teaches you that you count on everyone to your left and to your right. And I see Indiana that way. And I can see how much we can accomplish together."
The biographical piece is meant to introduce Holcomb to Hoosiers in this shortened race and doesn't talk about any issues or policy positions.
If you want a different look at Holcomb go to his YouTube page and look for his "On the Road with Eric" snippets. There are lots of hello's, and interviews and speeches and bro-hugs.
He makes stops at an Indianapolis barber shop and sandwich shop, where he greets friends.
But it lacks the unscripted moments ala Mitch Daniels in 2004 when he ran RV-1 - long-form ads of a sort following his travels.
On that Daniels could be seen swatting flies in the RV; telling kids to squeeze harder when they shake hands and meeting voters who had no idea who he was.
One infamous moment was watching Daniels react to a delicate situation. When telling one man on a porch in rural Indiana that he used to work for President Bush, the man replies that "Bush lied, troops died and the rich got richer."
He turned out to be a local Democratic precinct committeeman.


INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Medical Licensing Board early Friday took the medical license of a former Fort Wayne abortion doctor for failing to exercise reasonable care and violating several notice and documentation requirements.
The minimum six-month suspension for Dr. Ulrich Klopfer came after 12 hours of testimony and thousands of exhibits.
But it was a story that Klopfer told himself that struck a nerve with members of the board.
He spoke of a 10-year-old girl raped by her uncle who he performed an abortion on in an Illinois hospital but didn’t notify police about the child abuse. Instead, he let her go home with her parents, who knew of the rape and refused to prosecute.
It wasn’t part of the complaint filed by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office but appeared to shift the case, with several members of the board bringing it up during final discussion.
Board member Rebecca Moredock-Mueller described Klopfer as having a nonchalant attitude and lacked sound medical judgment.
“The thing that bothered me most was his professional incompetence,” she said.
Klopfer, 71, is likely Indiana’s most prolific abortion doctor in history, with tens of thousands of procedures in multiple counties over several decades.
Testimony during Thursday’s hearing – which ended Friday morning – showed a man who was essentially using abortion and sedation procedures from the 1970s and 1980s.
Klopfer told the panel he has never lost a patient in 43 years of doing abortions and has never even had a patient go into cardiac arrest.
“Women get pregnant, men don’t. We need to respect women making a decision that they think is best in their life,” he said. “I’m not here to dictate to anybody. I’m not here to judge anybody.”
The board specifically was bothered that he didn’t give pain medication to all women – only those under 16 and those who could pay extra. And when he did sedate women he didn’t have qualified staff to monitor them and didn’t follow best practices for administration of the drugs and emergency procedures.
Despite this, Klopfer had very few complications, which board members called amazing and lucky.
Klopfer can petition for reinstatement in six months – but only after he completes a laundry list of evaluations, continuing medical education credits and child abuse training. He also was fined $3,000.
The board found him guilty of five of nine charges. One of the charges related to not reporting abortions performed on two girls under the age of 14 within the three-day required timeline. Two referenced sedation and medical practices; two others were whether he followed state law requiring informed consent 18 hours before the procedure on a handful of women.
“Justice has been done,” said Cathie Humbarger, executive director at Allen County Right to Life. “We’re glad that he’s been held accountable for the inferior medical treatment that he has been responsible for over many, many years.”
Indiana Right to Life was instrumental in the censure after analyzing thousands of terminated pregnancy reports and other required documentation.
KIopfer has performed abortions in Fort Wayne, Gary and South Bend for years but is currently not practicing. All three of his abortion clinics have closed but he told the panel he wants to reopen when he can.
Mary Watts, Klopfer’s attorney, said the case is about forms and not about the standard of care patients received.
“He provided good medical care for his patients and did his best to follow the law,” she said. “It’s a question of documentation.”
She said any time deficiencies were found he corrected the procedure. Klopfer and Watts declined to speak at the conclusion of the hearing.
Klopfer began performing abortions in 1973 following the legalization of abortion by Roe v. Wade.
He had been affiliated with the Fort Wayne Women’s Health Organization since 1986 and became the owner in 2008.
Klopfer stopped performing abortions in Fort Wayne in January 2014 when he lost a backup physician required to meet the county’s admitting privileges law. The last of his clinics closed in November 2015.
nkelly@jg.net

Board yanks abortion doc's state license