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Star football player lost the expensive item while jet skiing at the lake.

Adrianne Haney, WXIA 8:04 PM. EDT July 26, 2017

ATLANTA -- The work of Internet trolls is never done.

On Tuesday, 11Alive reported how Falcons' wide receiver Julio Jones lost his $100,000+ earring in the waters of Lake Lanier while jet skiing. The superstar of the team said he was riding on the lake when he apparently hit a boat wake and was tossed into the water.

He came back up, but the earring didn't.

News of Jones hiring a dive team to search for the diamond made headlines online, with many cracking jokes about the Falcons' Super Bowl loss ("While they are at it could they search for the 28-3 lead they lost as well?") and comparing it to that time Kim Kardashian lost a diamond earring of her own.

Julio Jones hires dive team to search for $100K diamond earring he lost in lake while jet skiing, per @11AliveNews https://t.co/A1G1jSVBrk pic.twitter.com/9mPDWIiZms

The joke carried over (briefly) to Wikipedia, too, after someone edited the entry for Lake Lanier to read "Julio Jones' earring was found by pirates here, so don't look for it." The new line was short-lived, though, and was later taken down.

As for Jones, he's still without his earring --divers ultimately rose from the water empty-handed. But the Falcons star said he's just glad no one got hurt.

"As long as I'm good, it's materialistic stuff," he said. "You can always get that kind of stuff back."

UP-CLOSE |Divers descend into Lake Lanier to find $100Kearring

H/T to Twitter user Ben Anderson

2017 WXIA-TV

Link:
Wikipedia edit (briefly) adds Julio Jones' earring incident to Lake Lanier entry - WXIA-TV

Russian Mil Mi-28 attack helicopter.

The dispute began in 2015, when six wooden crates arrived in Muuga Harbor from Dubai. In the crates were spare parts for helicopters destined for Russia, according to weekly Eesti Ekspress.

According to the cargo papers, the spare parts were for civilian helicopters, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs strategic trade committee found that two engines that were part of the shipment could be used for the Russian Mil Mi-28 attack helicopter as well.

In connection with Russias involvement in Ukraine, the European Union has banned the sale or shipment of military equipment to Russia. Based on this directive, the Tax and Customs Board (MTA) fined shipper NTN EST in the amount of 1,600.

They justified the step stating the helicopter engines had been developed specially for the Mi-28 attack helicopter. The data they referred though was taken from a Wikipedia article.

The shipper and its lawyer, Gerly Kask, successfully contested the fine after the case passed all court tiers and eventually had to be taken up by the Supreme Court.

The court found that data published in Wikipedia wasnt sufficiently credible to justify an order of punishment, and that MTAs decision would have required an expertise, to be based on technical literature or on similar sources that could be properly ascertained.

Read the original here:
Customs board bases fine on Wikipedia entry, loses in Supreme Court - ERR News

Jul 26, 2017

Over a million and a half Belize dollars in forensic equipment was handed over to the Ministry of Home Affairs today. The donation, gifted by the US Embassy, is to assist the National Forensic Science Services in its work to properly analyze evidence handed over by the Scenes of Crime Unit. As a part of the donation, the agency received brand new mobile units that will help them to move easily from crime scenes to base. Andrea Polanco was in Ladyville today; she tells us more about the items that were handed over and how they will be used.

Andrea Polanco, Reporting

These nine, spanking new Ford F-150 customized pick-up trucks fitted with crime scene investigation kits will be used to help local authorities in processing crime scenes. The trucks will get personnel to the scene of crime quicker- and the equipment it comes with help to gather, analyze and preserve evidence. These mobile units, valued at around four-hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars, will strengthen the work of the Scenes of Crime Unit.

Lloyd Roches

Lloyd Roches, Head, Scene of Crime Unit

It is very important for us. We can now rely on ourselves for any transportation from the office to any crime scene countrywide.

Andrea Polanco

How does that help with the work on the ground?

Lloyd Roches

Well, it will make our work very easier because now we have all our equipment in the vehicle and we dont need to be going back and forth from office crime scene and from crime scene to office. So, we have all our equipment; cameras, mass destruction kit, generators, lights now that we can search at night more better; we have x-ray machine now that we can go to the morgue and it will be easier for us to find the slugs in the victims body or so.

Andrea Polanco

Do we have personnel who are trained to operate these different pieces of equipment?

Lloyd Roches

Yes. We do have persons that are trained. We had an advisor here about two years ago, Mister Hayden Baldwin who trained us in all the equipment we have and we have twenty nine competent forensic crime scene investigators country-wide to operate these equipment.

Andrea Polanco

Are some of these pieces the first time your unit will be using; are some of them new to the work that you do?

Lloyd Roches

Yes. Some of them are new that we will be getting, especially for the mass casualty kits, first time we are getting those kits. We have trained with one before but first time each unit or each office will have one. But lets say a mass casualty say an airplane crashed, now we have all the necessary equipment and materials to process that scene.

Often times, cases fall apart because there is a lack of eye witness or an uncooperative witness but these new specialized high tech pieces of equipment will be used to bridge that gap. They will be used to gather materials to help strengthen the successful prosecution of cases with science based evidence needed.

Elodio Aragon Jr.

Elodio Aragon Jr., Minister of State, Home Affairs

This will no doubt enhance the quality of evidence that the technicians will be expected to bring into the laboratory for analysis. The better quality evidence they are able to retrieve, the more useful the analysis will be to the prosecution case. As we strengthen the forensic department, we will in turn strengthen our cases in court. The days when we are getting witnesses to come forward easily especially for murder, and robbery and major crimes investigation is a challenge today. And we strengthen the scientific analysis that is being done in our blood section, in areas of finger printing, in terms of how we deal with the collection of evidence. Those will go a long way to bring justice to the victims of crime in this country.

To aid in citizen security and tackle crime, the donation includes a number of pieces of equipment valued at around three hundred, fifty thousand U.S. dollars; from small items like tape to be used on scene to specialized complex pieces to process and preserve samples gathered including ultra violet lights.

Nathan Bland

Nathan Bland, Deputy Charg daffaires, US Embassy

There is all kinds of equipment there, ranging from simple things, like lights and generators to help the staff process scenes of crime at night time; sketch pad to draw a crime scene; there is crime scene tape as you see on TV that they try to cordon off crime scene. But there is also more complex items like ultra violet lights to detect bodily fluids and other substances that are not readily visible to the human eye. There is a laser trajectory kit to help people establish what direction a bullet was fired from. There are sexual assault kits, portable x-ray machine and a drying cabinet which is important for preserving evidence so that blood stains or bodily fluids that are found dont get mooted over or not admissible later as evidence.

Also in the the trove of equipment are pieces for firearm and ammunition analysis.

Elodio Aragon Jr.

These include serial number restoration kit, a portable bullet recovery system, and weapon cleaning kits, to name a few. The bullet recovery system makes it possible for firearm examiners to test fire firearms from any locations and recover the bullets quickly and not have to test fire into the test-firing room into a bullet catcher and sorting through Kevlar for the bullet. This makes their work more convenient.

The evidence gathered from scenes is taken here to the National Forensic Science Service to be analyzed. The medical office gets this brand new high tech portable x-ray machine, and the lab unit gets other much needed equipment from this donation.

Nathan Bland

The goal of these donations is to better assist the forensic department to carry out their duties. Hopefully, as they begin to process crime scene it helps to solve more complex cases. Those who wish to commit crimes get more dissuaded as they realize that their chances of being caught and ultimately convicted continues to increase.

The scenes of crime unit in Belize City, Ladyville, orange walk, Corozal, san Ignacio, Belmopan, Dangriga, independence, Punta Gorda will each receive one of the trucks fitted with the crime scene kit. Reporting for News Five, Im Andrea Polanco.

Read more here:
C.S.I. Belize: Equipment and Wheels for Scenes of Crime, Forensic ... - channel5belize

Here are the Republicans remaining proposals for repealing the health care law.

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Congresss push for sanctions against Russia appeared to overcome a final obstacle after a key senator dropped his objection over the inclusion of North Korea in the legislation. But it is unclear when the Senate will vote on it.

Russian lawmakers have called for painful retaliation against the proposed sanctions, while the Kremlin said the news was sad for Russia-U.S. relations.

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A top E.U. legal adviser denounced Hungary and Slovakia for refusing to participate in a plan devised in 2015 to relocate migrants from Greece and Italy at the height of the migration crisis.

In a separate case, the European Commission also warned the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for ignoring relocation rules. Both legal actions could result in fines for the countries involved.

Above, Pakistani migrants sleeping inside an abandoned factory last month in Patras, Greece.

And there are new allegations of police abuse in Calais, France, where migrants say the police have been using pepper spray on sleeping people almost daily.

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A collection of artifacts from Auschwitz will travel for the first time to 14 cities across Europe and North America starting this year, in an effort to educate young people for whom the Holocaust is a fading slice of history.

Yet putting the Nazi death camp on tour instantly raises sensitivities. Organizers of the exhibition said that while visitors might be charged a small fee, their intent was not to make money from the suffering of millions of Nazi victims.

In Germany, a family will be reimbursed for the Nazi seizure of a masterpiece by Paul Klee, ending a 26-year court battle.

End of the road: Britain will ban the sales of new diesel and gas cars by 2040.

The Federal Reserve, as expected, left its benchmark interest rate unchanged. It said it expected to wind down its post-crisis economic stimulus campaign relatively soon.

Facebook reported yet another blockbuster quarter, despite company predictions of a slowdown. Amazon and Twitter report earnings today.

Its a busy day for earnings reports in Europe, with companies worth more than $3 trillion expected to announce results. One analyst called it a day from hell.

Heres a snapshot of global markets.

In southern France, at least 10,000 people were evacuated from homes and vacation sites as wildfires raged across the region. [The New York Times]

In Afghanistan, the Taliban routed an Afghan Army outpost in Kandahar Province, killing dozens of soldiers and raising fears of a major insurgent offensive. [The New York Times]

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain, appearing as a witness in a corruption trial, denied that his conservative Popular Party had operated a slush fund. [The New York Times]

The E.U.s top court ruled that the Islamist militant group Hamas should remain on the E.U. terrorism blacklist. [Reuters]

Sven Lau, one of Germanys best-known Islamist extremists, was sentenced to more than five years in prison for supporting the Islamist insurgency in Syria. [The New York Times]

The E.U. rebuked Poland over proposed changes to its judiciary but said it would not invoke a provision in the E.U. treaty that could have resulted in Polands loss of voting rights in the bloc. [The New York Times]

Paul Shanley, one of the most notorious priests in the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church, is set to be released from prison in Massachusetts on Friday amid protests. [The New York Times]

Prime Minister Theresa Mays strategy director and chief speechwriter is the latest aide to resign after the Conservatives lost the British election last month. [Politico]

President Trump has named Pete Hoekstra, a Tea Party founder and gay rights opponent, as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. [The Guardian]

Sperm counts among men from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand seem to have halved in less than 40 years, alarming researchers who cant explain the decline. [BBC]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

Recipe of the day: Feeding a crew? Smothered pork chops are a good choice.

Air-conditioners can make some peoples noses clog or run for several reasons.

Ask Well: Is sweating good?

Fueled by demand in the Persian Gulf states, the Italian marble trade is booming. Heres a look at how the stone is wrenched from the earth.

Acquiring Neymar from Barcelona could cost Paris St.-Germain more than a half-billion dollars. But adding him may turn the French club from contenders to champions. We asked the president of F.C. Barcelona about Neymars potential transfer.

In memoriam: Marina Ratner, a mathematician and Russian-Jewish migr who proved her most influential theorem after she turned 50, has died at 78.

In a terse ceremony 64 years ago today at the border between North and South Korea, an armistice ended fighting in the devastating Korean War.

The signing ceremony, above, took 11 minutes, The Times reported. Expressionless signatories agreed to a cease-fire, but, the report noted, real peace remained elusive.

Under the deal, tens of thousands of American troops stayed in South Korea, many in the sprawling military base near Itaewon in central Seoul. These soldiers, who for decades brought American food to the country, have come to influence its cuisine.

This impact was most felt after the war, when food was scarce. Shrewd cooks mixed U.S. Army surplus supplies, such as Spam and hot dogs, with traditional ingredients, like kimchi spicy, pickled cabbage.

The product has since become the ultimate comfort food dish: budae jjigae (pronounced BUH-day CHEE-gay), or military stew.

Some say the spicy, hearty soup can help cure anything from a cold to a hangover. Recipes vary, but it generally requires little preparation: Add slices of Spam, hot dogs, mushrooms, tofu, instant ramen and cheese into a pot of stock and boil.

Flavor with chili paste, sugar, garlic and, of course, kimchi.

Patrick Boehler contributed reporting.

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This briefing was prepared for the European morning. You can browse through past briefings here.

We also have briefings timed for the Australian, Asian and American mornings. You can sign up for these and other Times newsletters here.

Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes.com.

Read this article:
Donald Trump, European Union, Calais: Your Thursday Briefing - New York Times

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Before he entered the White House, President Trump looked at the American war effort in Iraq and came away with a simple solution: Take the oil.

Thankfully, this campaign-trail suggestion has not carried over to his presidency. But it was an early warning sign of Trump's own capacity for grand strategy. He sees everything, including international relations, as a transaction, a quid pro quo arrangement where even the complex legacy of a U.S. invasion in the Middle Eastcan be reduced to a bad deal and an argument to plunder another nation's wealth.

Now, it seems, he mayhold a similar view when it comes to Afghanistan, where American troops have been stationed for more than 15 years.

Recent reportshave underscored the brewing fight within the White House over the future of its Afghan policy. Someadministration officials most notably national security adviser H.R. McMaster are urging a mini-surge of U.S. troops to help Afghan forces fight the Taliban and affiliates of the Islamic State. But Trump appears unwilling to commit further American blood and treasure to a faraway conflict although he has no qualms dropping some especially large bombs and is loath to repeat the policies of his predecessors. I want to find out why we've been there for 17 years, he told reporters last week.

According to the New York Times, however, something has caught Trump's eye: access to a rumored $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan. Evenwhile White House officials spar over the nature of their war strategy, they are exploring the possibility of sending an envoy to Kabul to meet with mining officials. Trump is reportedly eager to not let China eat the United States'lunch when it comes to securing Afghanistan's potentially lucrative deposits.

But many analysts are skeptical. A $3 billion Chinese project to develop a copper mine outside Kabul has been stalled for close to a decade. The country's lack of basicinfrastructure, endemic graft and perennial security concerns would undermine any serious venture.

It would be dangerous to use the potential for resource exploitation as a selling point for military engagement, Laurel Miller, who until last month was the State Departments special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, saidto the Times. The barriers to entry are really quite considerable, and that kind of argument could fuel suspicion about Americas real intentions in Afghanistan.

The discussion about miningcoincides witha change of heart fromAfghan President Ashraf Ghani, who during the Obama administration resisted the rapid development of the mining industry, largely because he worried about the threat of widespread corruption that would come with it, the Times reported. But as soon as Mr. Trump was elected, Mr. Ghani reversed his position, contacting the Trump team and promoting Afghanistans mineral wealth. He realized that Mr. Trump would be intrigued by the commercial possibilities, officials said.

On a certain level, Trump can't be blamed for being fatigued by Afghanistan.Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both struggled with the challenge of occupying and rebuilding the war-ravaged nation. Obama's slow withdrawal from the country was criticized by senior U.S. military officials including McMaster, a three-star Army general for handing the initiative to the Taliban.

In a bid to conjure up a new strategy, the White House has even contemplated outsourcing the war to private contractors. These discussions, apparently encouraged by White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, underlay an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal written by Erik Prince, the controversial founder of private military company Blackwater. Prince essentially called for an American viceroy to run Afghanistan with the aid of battalions of mercenaries.Prince likened the enterprise to that of the East India Company a chilling analogy given the company's history of plunder, corruption and violence in colonial South Asia.

Imperial delusions aside, few American officials can say what victory looks like, even after so many years invested in the country. The goal now seems more akin to 'not losing,' " my colleague Max Bearak wrote, before offering a grim summary of the state of affairs:

A resurgent Taliban now controls 40 percent of the country's districts. A fledgling Islamic State affiliate isproving hard to eliminatein the mountainous east. The popularity of the American mission here has eroded into cynicism as the war grinds on. Afghan civilians and security forces are dying in record numbers andmore than 600civilians were killed by NATO or government-aligned forces last year.Casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 percent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed, according to U.S. government watchdog SIGAR.

In interviews, Bearak asked prominent officialsin Afghanistan what would happen if the United Statesheeded Trump's America First"message and simply leftthe country. A U.S. military spokesman said it would leave a void that would be exploited by a constellation of insurgent groups. Some Afghans indicated that the U.S. troop presence was itself a spur for violence. Others warned that the country's weakgovernment, beset by scandal and infighting, would collapse without international support and protection.

I dont think there is any serious analyst of the situation in Afghanistan who believes that the war is winnable, said Miller, the former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan,to Politico's Susan Glasser.Its possible to prevent the defeat of the Afghan government and prevent military victory by the Taliban, but this is not a war thats going to be won, certainly not in any time horizon thats relevant to political decision-making in Washington.

And so despite Trump's desire for a win, youprobably will hearmore of the same from Washington.The basic parameters of the emerging new plan building up Afghan security forces, enlisting Pakistans support to eliminate Taliban sanctuaries, coaxing the Taliban to the negotiating table reflect the same elusive goals in place for the last sixteen years, wrote Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. The Trump administrations open-ended commitment to Afghanistan effectively buys America more time to keep making the same mistakes. The strategy risks being little more than old wine in a new bottle.

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Originally posted here:
Trump's crude view of Afghanistan won't solve US's longest-running war - Washington Post