Gold up, dollar shaken by U.S. government shutdown fears

By Renita D. Young and Maytaal Angel

Reuters20 January 2018

Gold bars and granules are pictured at the Austrian Gold and Silver Separating Plant 'Oegussa' in Vienna October 23, 2012. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader

By Renita D. Young and Maytaal Angel

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Gold prices rose slightly on Friday as the U.S. dollar hovered near a three-year low on heightened fears of a U.S. government shutdown, but the precious metal was still on track for its first weekly drop in six weeks.

The U.S. dollar fell versus a basket of currencies as the U.S. Senate raced to avert a government shutdown on Friday ahead of a midnight deadline with no agreement on funding in sight. A weak dollar makes dollar-priced gold cheaper for non-U.S. investors.

Spot gold <XAU=> was up 0.5 percent at $1,334.58 per ounce at 2:06 p.m. EST (1906 GMT), on track for a weekly drop of 0.3 percent, after falling from Monday's four-month highs.

U.S. gold futures <GCcv1> for February delivery settled up $5.90, or 0.4 percent, at $1,333.10 per ounce.

"Gold is shaking off an upside bounce to the dollar and looking at the possibility of a government shutdown, said Bob Haberkorn, senior market strategist at RJO Futures in Chicago.

Market participants are also hedging against geopolitical risks of North Korea cancelling its planned delegation visit to South Korea to prepare for a trip by an art troupe during next month's Winter Olympics, Haberkorn added.

However, gold's gains were capped by a week-long rise in bond yields fuelled by expectations that strong global economic data would encourage the U.S. Federal Reserve to press ahead with monetary tightening.

Expectations of rising interest rates tend to lift bond yields, reducing the appeal of holding non-yielding bullion while boosting the dollar, in which gold is priced.

The Fed should raise interest rates three to four times in both 2018 and 2019, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said on Thursday, a pace slightly faster than many of her fellow policymakers prefer.

"The fundamentals remain the same with the large trading range remaining intact at $1,200 to $1,400, with no major change in global political tensions or rate hike outlook," said Mark To, head of research at Hong Kong's Wing Fung Financial Group.

Spot gold is still targeting $1,311 per ounce, as suggested by a small double-top and a Fibonacci retracement analysis, according to Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.

Silver <XAG=> advanced 0.6 percent to $17.03 per ounce, while palladium <XPD=> gained 0.5 percent at $1,104, but both metals, like gold, were set for their first weekly drop in six weeks.

Platinum <XPT=> was up 1.3 percent at $1,013.40 per ounce after peaking at $1,015.20, the highest since September, on track for its sixth weekly gain.

(Additional reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Jane Merriman and Richard Chang)

Child in heartbreaking hospital photo with her grandfather dies of cancer

Rachel Hosie

The IndependentJanuary 18, 2018

Ally Parker: Facebook

A little girl who went viral in a photo last week has died from cancer.

Five-year-old Braylynn Lawhon from Pensacola, Florida sadly died from the most deadly form of brain cancer, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), for which there is no cure and no survival rate.

A picture of Lawhon went viral last week, which showed the young girl in her hospital bed accompanied by her grandfather, who is battling motor neurone disease.

Canadian travellers urged to 'exercise a high degree of caution' in Jamaica

The Canadian PressJanuary 20, 2018

Canadian travellers urged to 'exercise a high degree of caution' in Jamaica

Canadian sun seekers in Jamaica are being urged to "exercise a high degree of caution" following a spate of violent crime in the popular winter getaway.

The Canadian government has issued a travel warning in the wake of a military lockdown in St. James Parish, which includes the popular tourist destination Montego Bay.

The government's safety note urges anyone staying at a resort in the affected area to "restrict your movements" to the property.

Those who venture beyond should use transportation arranged by the resort and only use organized tour operators for excursions and travel.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has said escalating criminal activity was endangering public safety, necessitating a state of public emergency and the deployment of military forces.

A married couple from Winnipeg was found dead earlier this month while visiting Jamaica.

"If you are in the affected area, be extremely vigilant, follow the instructions of local authorities and monitor local news," says the Canadian travel warning.

Sunwing was quick to reassure customers that its flights, cruise and vacation packages were operating as scheduled.

The travel company also said in a statement that it's waiving its usual fee to allow customers to change their reservation to an all-inclusive resort if they are currently booked in a non-inclusive resort or hotel in St. James Parish. Customers would still be required to pay the applicable price difference.

Sunwing says it sends approximately 5,000 visitors through Montego Bay airport each week, and more than 95 per cent of vacationers choose all-inclusive resorts.

The advice to "exercise a high degree of caution" falls below the Canadian government's next risk level to avoid all non-essential travel.

There are currently more than 60 countries where the Canadian government warns travellers to "exercise a high degree of caution," including other Caribbean nations such as the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Trinidad and Tobago, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Canadian Press

Astronaut Set to be First African American on Space Station Crew Removed from Flight

Robert Z. Pearlman <a href="http://www.collectspace.com">collectSPACE.com Editor</a>

SPACE.comJanuary 19, 2018

HOUSTON — A NASA astronaut who was slated to become the first African American to serve as a member of the crew aboard the International Space Station has been removed from her upcoming mission.

Jeanette Epps, who had been scheduled to launch to the space station in June of this year for a five-month expedition, has been replaced on the flight by another NASA astronaut, Serena Auñón-Chancellor, who was serving as Epps' backup.

NASA announced the crew change on Thursday (Jan. 18), stating that Epps will assume duties in the Astronaut Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and "be considered for assignment to future missions."

The reason for Epps' removal was not given. Brandi Dean, a NASA spokesperson, said that a number of factors were considered.

"These decisions are personnel matters for which NASA doesn't provide information," Dean told collectSPACE.com.

View photos

Jeanette Epps' July 2017 NASA portrait as a flight engineer on the Expedition 56 and Expedition 57 space station crews. NASA

Epps, 47, was chosen by NASA to train as an astronaut in 2009. In January 2017, the space agency announced that Epps would become the first African American station crew member, launching with two other crewmates on Russia's Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft. Once on the space station, Epps would serve as a flight engineer on both the Expedition 56 and Expedition 57 crews.

Six African-American astronauts — Robert Curbeam, Alvin Drew, Joan Higginbotham, Leland Melvin, Robert Satcher and Stephanie Wilson — previously visited the station on space shuttle missions to assemble and supply the orbiting laboratory, but Epps would have been the first to serve on the space station's resident crew.

The news of Epps' flight assignment quickly spread online, appearing on numerous websites and in news publications worldwide. Woman's Day featured Epps on the cover of its 80th birthday issue in September 2017.

"Next year, astronaut Jeanette Epps will add her name to an exclusive list of women who have traveled to space," Woman's Day reported at the time." After almost a decade of training in robotics and the Russian language — so that she can communicate with the cosmonauts on her mission — she will become the first African American woman to live and work long-term at the International Space Station."

Prior to her space station assignment, Epps served on a panel focused on improving crew efficiency on the outpost. She also worked as a support crew member for two station expeditions and as a spacecraft communicator, or capcom, in mission control.

Most recently, Epps was assigned as backup to Norishige Kanai, an astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), who lifted off to the space station on Dec. 17, where he is currently an Expedition 54 flight engineer.

"We together went through all trainings and examinations and all of the requirements. I am pretty sure your time will come pretty, pretty soon," said Kanai, addressing Epps at his pre-launch press conference.

View photos

Mike Moritz and the declining America worker

Danny Crichton

TechCrunchJanuary 21, 2018

Storied Sequoia investor Mike Moritz threw fire into the tech Twitter gumbo with his observations of hard-working Chinese workers and slothful Silicon Valley engineers.

Storied Sequoia investor Mike Moritz threw fire into the tech Twitter gumbo with his observations of hard-working Chinese workers and slothful Silicon Valley engineers. Moritz, a billionaire, clearly needs page views to fund his retirement.

The major money quote about Silicon Valley is this: “In recent months, there have been complaints about the political sensibilities of speakers invited to address a corporate audience; debates over the appropriate length of paternity leave or work-life balances; and grumbling about the need for a space for musical jam sessions. These seem like the concerns of a society that is becoming unhinged.”

He compares those petit concerns with the work ethic of Chinese workers who “appear about 10am and leave at midnight.” He focuses in on women, “Many of these high-flyers only see their children — who are often raised by a grandmother or nanny — for a few minutes a day.” And he emphasizes the Chinese and their spendthrift ways: “It is also striking to the western eye how frequently a tea bag is reused.”

Reaction to the piece was strong, as one can imagine. TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos posted her rebuttal yesterday, saying “Moritz has hit a few balls out of the park, yes. But that doesn’t mean we should take his opinion as gospel. In fact, I would argue that mega-billionaires like Moritz have absolutely no place telling anyone how hard they should be working, in the U.S. or anywhere else.”

David Heinemeier Hansson, a partner at Basecamp and inventor of the Ruby on Rails programming framework, put it even more bluntly in a tweet:

That seems par for the course among hundreds of other commenters online and across Twitter.

To me though, Moritz’ comments are reasonably accurate, at least as far as stereotyping a country of 1.38 billion people and a region of a million or more goes. It’s clear that the Chinese work harder in tech on average, and that Chinese workplaces have many less frills than Silicon Valley workplaces. This has been known for years, and is not news.

The far more interesting thread in this story is why it was so inflammatory in the first place. Sure, he conflated paternity leave and asking for a musical rehearsal room, and made it seem as if parents shouldn’t see their kids. And he’s a billionaire. I get the hashtag class warfare angle here.

However, the post was inflammatory precisely because we are starting to feel the pain of competition again in the American economy. For the first time, white collar workers in the United States are facing what our blue collar brethren have experienced the past three decades: sliding salaries and benefits as their jobs were outsourced, the downsizing of the American dream.

America liked the arrangement where clean, high-value design and services stayed in the United States and hard, dirty jobs like manufacturing, heavy industry, and rare earth mining were outsourced to China. Americans did the productive work, the Chinese did the hard work. Americans made the money, the Chinese got paid a couple of yuan.

Capitalism was “introduced” in China in 1980 with the opening of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. 37 years later, and the country’s GDP is nearly the same size as the United States. China as a whole has worked extraordinarily hard to get to where it is today. Are we really surprised then that those same industrious Chinese workers suddenly continue working hard in the high-tech industry and start to compete toe-to-toe with American tech giants?

In the startup circles in the Valley and New York City that I hang out in, paternity leave has come up on numerous occasions. There are multiple founders in my network that offer unlimited vacation for their startups, and offer free lunches, massages, and other accoutrements on top of dizzying salaries. All at startups. In some cases even before the series A but almost always afterwards.

All of those benefits make sense at some level — talent is scarce, and after several decades of research, companies found out that treating humans well is ultimately a win-win for everyone.

So why are we worried about China? If our workplace policies are really creating ideal conditions for productivity, aren’t we the ones who are benefitting? The Chinese will work themselves to death, and Americans who are working smarter will reap the rewards.

The women who marched in 2018

Lisa Belkin

Chief National Correspondent

,

Yahoo News•January 21, 2018

Marchers passing the Trump International Hotel. (Photo: Jackson Freiman

The marchers stretched for 30 city blocks along Central Park West, from its starting point in front of the Trump International Hotel at 59th Street all the way back to the Museum of Natural History at 86th. The crowd filled the side streets along that stretch too. They stood shoulder to shoulder on 71st and 75th, waiting for the police to remove the barricades so they could join the sea of people.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office estimated the crowd size as being at least 200,000 people.

The result was a stretch of bright pink hats and largely hand-drawn signs, supporting a swath of causes. The atmosphere was that of a New Orleans funeral — a mix of high spirits and deep mourning, interspersed with marching bands and a smattering of costumes. Down Central Park West it wound, onto Sixth Avenue, ending at Bryant Park in midtown.

Diane Carlson and Roseanne Ryan took a train from Stony Brook University at 7:40 a.m. and headed for the hotel room they had booked in Manhattan for that night. They had been at last year’s march in Washington, and anticipating similar crowds here, they decided to stay overnight rather than fight traffic going home.

They put their sign together at the hotel. “Make America Kind Again,” it read. There would have been a picture too — of the Statue of Liberty kicking Donald Trump with her boot — but they forgot to pack it, and once at the march they decided that was for the best. “It wasn’t the kindest image,” Carlson said. “Now this is a completely kind sign.”

Other sign makers were not as concerned with being kind. Using the president’s “own language,” flight attendant Jonni Lane drew a picture of Trump with the poop emoji spewing from his mouth. “S***hole-N-Chief,” it read, and was one of hundreds of curse-filled signs held by marchers. “It’s been a rough year,” Lane said of her reasons for marching. “I’m here to protest, to make my voice heard, to vent. A little shouting never hurt anyone.”

Evy Lieberman, right, and Nancy Gillon. (Photo: Lisa Belkin/Yahoo News)

More complicated, but on the same theme, was the “Dump Trump” sign carried by Evy Lieberman and her friend Nancy Gillon, who had driven in from Tenafly, N.J. Attached to the sign was an actual roll of toilet paper, each sheet of which carried a picture of the president.

“I’m here because she marched last year and said it was an incredible experience surrounded by all those determined people,” Gillon said, pointing to Lieberman. “I needed to experience some of that energy.”

“And I needed to get it back,” Lieberman said. “I’m here because I’ve been miserable.”

Officially, march organizers are describing the events taking place in cities around the country and the world as “marches” rather than “protests” — and they stress that the purpose is to encourage voter participation in the 2018 midterm elections and beyond.

In that spirit, Yisel Fernandez carried a sign that said, “I’m Hispanic, I’m a Mother, I’m a Business Owner & I Vote.” She was marching for her 2-year-old daughter, she said, whom she was going to bring but decided to leave at home because, despite the unseasonably warm high of 51 degrees, it was still “really cold” for a toddler.

Loveena Rajanayakam was also marching for her young daughters, and she brought them along, bundled up in matching purple winter coats. Together they held signs that read, “ReSISTER” and “I Love Naps But I Stay Woke.”

“It’s very important for them to understand that they can do anything, shouldn’t take anything for granted, and have a voice that needs to be heard,” she said.

And Amanda Hambrick was marching with 1-year-old Skylar, who was kind of marching for herself. The toddler did her best to toddle along with her mother with a sign around her neck that read, “I marched before I walked.”

Asked why she was marching, Hambrick said, “We’ve got to show up for each other. There’s too much at stake.”

In a marvel of logistics, large groups of marchers managed to meet up on a variety of street corners and march together. A group of 100 Asian-Americans did so at Broadway and 69th Street, representing a collection of advocacy groups, including the Asian Women’s Network, the Korean American Service Center, and Asian Women United.

“Power to the polls, that’s our cause,” said Joyce Samoa, one of the marchers. “We want Asian-American women to start voting. We are the poorest group in New York City, and we are underrepresented on the voter rolls and in public office.”

Ann Marie Morris, Barbara Spitzer, and Marc Allen stopped on their way to the march to shop. They already had their signs. “Truth, We Miss You,” Allen’s read; “Build A Wall Around Trump! I’ll Pay For It,” read Morris’s.

But they added messages from one of the many button vendors lining the sidewalks. “Go Fact Yourself,” read one purchase. “Michelle Obama 2020” said another.

“He’s a disgrace, he’s an embarrassment,” Morris said of why she was marching. “We wouldn’t accept this behavior from a CEO, a Hollywood actor; no one else is allowed to act like this.”

Lois Hoffmann turned 80 this year, and the Women’s March was “on my bucket list,” she says. So her daughters brought her down from her New Hampshire home to protest.

“There is no force more powerful than a woman determined,” read her sign, which she held while her daughter Catherine Sorenson pushed her wheelchair.

“Not this Grandma’s President,” read Janet Mehan’s as she walked next to her.

There was no one keeping track, but odds are that Ruth Rosar was the oldest marcher present in New York City. She was born on March 3, 1916, she said, making her almost 102 years old.

Her mother was a suffragette, marching for the women’s vote, and now Rosar was decked all in red, wearing a button that said, “Another Nasty Woman Against Trump,” and attracting a crowd.

“I have been watching Donald Trump and the 68 million people who voted for him tear down our nation, agency by agency. I can’t really march,” she said, pointing to her walker and explaining that she would spend the day on a quieter sidewalk greeting passersby. “But I can be here.”

Women like Rosar were on Ana Lombardo’s mind as she marched. “Grateful to the Women Before Me Who Fought For My Rights,” her sign read.

Others were on her mind as well. On one side of her sign’s handle she had attached a photo of her friend Christine, who died of breast cancer three years ago, and “who would have absolutely been here,” Lombardo said.

And on the other side was a photo of her friend Sal, who died of AIDS less than a year ago. Sal was too sick to attend the 2017 march with Lombardo, but she carried his photo there as well. “And he made me promise that if I went this year, I would take him with me in spirit again,” she said.

A different woman was in Shawn Gutcheff’s mind — and on her sign. She brought a poster of Oprah Winfrey with her from Salt Lake City because, she said, “I’m marching for Oprah. For everything that is the antithesis of Donald Trump.”

Mya Stein, Ally Dolmanisth, Haley Prisloe and Kate Gregory are all 17 years old and will all vote for the first time this year. They take that responsibility seriously, they say, and came to march so that others would register.

“I think our generation needs to experience these things so that we can build our own future,” said Dolmanisth’s 15-year-old sister, Sophie. So the group put sparkly face paint on their cheeks and used bright colors on their signs.

“Without Hermione, Harry Would Have Died in Book 1,” read Stein’s.

“Girls Just Want to Have FUNdamental Rights,” read Dolmanisth’s.

Many of the marchers were second-timers, having participated in the 2017 march in New York or elsewhere.

Susan Ferziger was one of those, and now she was back carrying a sign that said, “Last Year I Was Scared, This Year I Am Angry.”

“It’s worse than I’d feared,” she said, listing more than a dozen administration actions with which she disagreed. “So I’m back.”

It was also not Charise Fisher’s first march. When she was 12, her mother brought her to a protest against South African apartheid, and she says, “I will never forget the day Nelson Mandela got out of jail.” To carry on the legacy of protest, she brought her daughters, 7-year-old Nina and 9-year-old Lauren, along today.

“As black women, we stand on the legacy of the people who marched before,” she said. “So this generation has to continue marching.”

All along the route there were political conversations, and one of the more common themes was exactly what these large gatherings of protesters actually accomplished.

Clarissa Rodriguez and Eliza Mendel, both classmates from SUNY Purchase in Westchester, said they were marching because they believed in the power of hundreds of thousands of voices.

“People said last year that the Women’s March wasn’t going to do anything, it wouldn’t change anything,” Rodriguez said. “But it created real action — the #MeToo movement, the voter registration drives, all those women running for office.”

Ellie Engstram, who traveled to the march from Ohio, also agreed that there was value in the gathering. If nothing else, she said, being together in one place was reinforcing for those who participated.

“It’s important to get together to have our voices heard and to have conversations rather than just tweeting,” she said, carrying a sign that read, “Liberty Is a Lady for a Reason.”

John Cadue was dressed head to toe in rainbows, carrying a sign that said, “Only Love Can Drive Out Hate.”

When asked why he was marching, he swept his hand down the length of his multicolor-clad body and said, “Doesn’t this speak for itself? Activism is alive and well.”

Cheryl Snow wasn’t sure what sign she would carry today. Then she woke up to the morning news and was certain.

“1/20/17 Trump Inaugurated, 1/20/18 Fed Gov Shutdown,” she wrote in red marker on white posterboard. “Trump said that he would run America like his businesses.”

Her friend Doria Bachenheimer, who carried that sign, said that she and Snow were marching for many reasons — “for human rights, for basic human decency, for democracy…”

Artist Monica Martino realizes that she has made a nice living off of Donald Trump. A year ago, the Atlanta native painted a poster showing a ripe orange peach topped with a shock of blond hair and the message “ImPeach.” She put it on her website and has sold quite a few.

This year, her poster has a picture of the Statue of Liberty and the message “Girl, Hold My Earrings,” as Lady Liberty prepares for a fight. She put her web address on the poster and figures she will sell a number of these images too.

“It’s good for business but terrible for my morale,” she said of the current administration. “I want to put myself out of business. I want to go back to drawing animals and other cute stuff.”

On the sidewalk along Central Park South, as a stream of marchers passed by, Valeama Virginie and her brand new husband, Cochan Yves, stood confused.

She was in her white gown, he was in his brown suit, and they were headed for Central Park to take wedding photos immediately after their ceremony when they encountered quite a crowd.

From a French island off the coast of Madagascar, they had come 20,000 kilometers to be married in New York but had not heard there would be another big event that day.

“What is this for?” Virginie asked. “It’s against Trump,” a passerby told her. Bride and groom smiled and pumped their fists.

Two hours after the march first began to move, with no end in sight, Candy Fitts and Barbara Posner, both from Connecticut, stood watching from the sidewalk wearing the ubiquitous pink “pussy hats” and holding a sign that read, “We’re Still Here! 2018.”

They were already thinking of next Jan. 20 and wondering whether there would be a need to march again. They were fairly sure there would — that the march represented a real change in the political landscape and those who were marching, once emboldened, would not go quietly back to their former lives.

“Our message is that we’re not going away; nobody’s giving up,” Posner said. “This will continue until we’re heard.”

Read more from Yahoo News:

• Skullduggery, Episode 2: Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on ‘The Post,’ Trump and North Korea
• Trump’s language on immigrants provokes a backlash in the pulpits
• The ‘Sisterhood of the Van,’ one year after the Women’s March
• Price hike would make national parks look like ‘exclusive club,’ resigning NPS board member says
• Photos: 2nd annual Women’s March: A multi-city mass rally

Upset for being rusticated, Haryana class 12 student shoots dead school principal

IANS

Firstpost20 January 2018

A class 12 student allegedly shot dead the principal of his school on Saturday

>Chandigarh: A class 12 student allegedly shot dead the principal of his school on Saturday, Haryana Police said.

The accused student fired four shots at principal Ritu Chhabra, who was in her office at the time of the incident, with a .32 bore gun and critically injured her, they said.

Chhabra succumbed to her injuries in the hospital. The accused, who was overpowered by school staff, was handed over to the police and was being questioned.

The student, police sources said, was upset over being rusticated from the school.

The incident took place between 11:30 am and 12 noon, police said.

Yamunanagar is around 100 km from Chandigarh. View More