Brazil daycare fire: Four toddlers and teacher killed in arson attack + 25 people were injured

FOUR toddlers have been killed in a horrific arson attack this morning at a nursery in Brazil.

The Sun reports the tots, aged between two and four, and one teacher were burned alive at the Innocent Children’s People Municipal Education Centre, in Janaúba, Minas Gerias, police said.

The suspect — a security guard named Damiao Soares dos Santos — allegedly threw gasoline over children at the nursery before setting them on fire and himself, reports The Sun.

He is also alleged to have locked a teacher in a room before setting fire to the professional.

A further 25 people were injured

Source: Brazil daycare fire: Four toddlers and teacher killed in arson attack

‘Not acceptable’: Turnbull slams Abbott after drunkenness. + We pay for these Clowns!

The prime minister has taken Tony Abbott to task for passing out drunk in parliament in 2009 and missing critical votes on the Rudd government’s global financial crisis spending bills.

Malcolm Turnbull knew Mr Abbott was asleep in his office and unable to be roused after a boozy dinner with colleagues, but there was nothing he could do.

“It’s clearly not acceptable or admirable in any way,” he told Neil Mitchell on 3AW radio on Friday.

Then-Labor treasurer Wayne Swan also weighed in on Mr Abbott, saying his recklessness knew no bounds.

Mr Abbott has laughed off his night in the members-only dining room in early 2009 when “quite a few bottles of wine were consumed” between three MPs.

“There was one famous occasion when Peter Costello, Kevin Andrews and I hung out rather a long time here,” he will say in an upcoming episode of the ABC television series The House.

“I think quite a few bottles of wine were consumed by the three of us. Peter was close to leaving at that stage, and I think all of us were in a mellow and reflective mood, so the reflections went on for longer, and later, than they
should have.”

Mr Abbott, who was a member of Mr Turnbull’s then- shadow ministry, admitted he slept through several divisions.

Source: ‘Not acceptable’: Turnbull slams Abbott after admission of drunkenness | SBS News

California Crops Rot During Farmworker Shortage: U.S. immigration policies

No one wants to do the harvesting.

US Vegetable prices may be going up soon, as a shortage of migrant workers is resulting in lost crops in California.

Farmers say they’re having trouble hiring enough people to work during harvest season, causing some crops to rot before they can be picked. Already, the situation has triggered losses of more than $13 million in two California counties alone, according to NBC News.

The ongoing battle about U.S. immigration policies is blamed for the shortage. The vast majority of California’s farm workers are foreign born, with many coming from Mexico. However, the PEW Research Center reports more Mexicans are leaving the U.S. than coming here.

Source: Immigration: California Crops Rot During Farmworker Shortage | Fortune.com

Rapper Kidd Creole Arrested After Homeless Man Stabbed

The victim, a 55-year-old homeless man, was found with multiple stab wounds

One of the founding members of the 1980s hip hop group Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five has been arrested in New York in connection with the fatal stabbing of a homeless man.

Police say 57-year-old Nathaniel Glover, also known as The Kidd Creole, was arrested Wednesday night on murder charges. Information on his lawyer wasn’t immediately available.

The stabbing happened in midtown Manhattan shortly before midnight Monday. Police say the 55-year-old victim was found with multiple stab wounds to his torso.

It’s not clear what sparked the stabbing. Police describe the victim as a level 2 sex offender.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is best known for their 1982 rap song, “The Message.” The group was formed in the late 1970s in the Bronx.

Source: Rapper Kidd Creole Arrested After Homeless Man Stabbed | Time.com

No wonder the Aussie government tries to hide its emissions reports. They stink

Once Dominant, the United States Finds Itself Isolated at G-20

HAMBURG, Germany — For years the United States was the dominant force and set the agenda at the annual gathering of the leaders of the world’s largest economies.

But on Friday, when President Trump met with 19 other leaders at the Group of 20 conference, he found the United States isolated on everything from trade to climate change, and faced with the prospect of the group’s issuing a statement on Saturday that lays bare how the United States stands alone.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the host of the meeting, opened it by acknowledging the differences between the United States and the rest of the countries. While “compromise can only be found if we accommodate each other’s views,” she said, “we can also say, we differ.”

Ms. Merkel also pointed out that most of the countries supported the Paris accord on climate change, while Mr. Trump has abandoned it. “It will be very interesting to see how we formulate the communiqué tomorrow and make clear that, of course, there are different opinions in this area because the United…

 

Yemen’s cholera death toll rises to 1,500: WHO

The death toll from a major cholera outbreak in Yemen has risen to 1,500, Nevio Zagaria, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) representative in Yemen, said on Saturday, and appealed for more help to put an end to the epidemic.

Yemen has been devastated by a 27-month war between a Saudi-led coalition and the armed Iran-aligned Houthi group, making it a breeding ground for the disease, which spreads by faeces getting into food or water and thrives in places with poor sanitation.

Speaking at a joint news conference with representatives of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank, Zagaria said that had been some 246,000 suspected cases in the period to June 30.

The WHO said this week that the outbreak had reached the halfway mark at 218,798 cases as a massive emergency response has begun to curb its spread two months into the epidemic.

Although most of Yemen’s health infrastructure has broken down and health workers have not been paid for more than six months, the WHO is paying “incentives” to doctors, nurses, cleaners and paramedics to staff an emergency cholera network.

With funding help from the World Bank, the WHO is setting up treatment centers with 50-60 beds each, overseen by shifts of about 14 staff working around the clock. The aim is to reach 5,000 beds in total.

Source: Yemen’s cholera death toll rises to 1,500: WHO | Reuters

Sacré beurre: fears over croissant price hike as France faces butter shortage

Turnbull government backs women’s football world cup bid

The Turnbull government is backing the Football Federation of Australia’s bid to host the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

Australians backed the Matildas campaign at the Rio Olympics and hosting the next tournament would inspire a new generation of female sporting stars across the nation, the prime minister said.

“Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have the Matildas contesting a Women’s World Cup on home soil here in Australia,” he said in Canberra on Tuesday.

The world cup will bring together 24 nations and is expected to reach a global audience of more than 700 million people.

Source: PM backs women’s football world cup bid | SBS News

Jared Kushner built a luxury skyscraper using loans meant for job-starved areas

Jared Kushner and his real estate partners wanted to take advantage of a federal program in 2015 that would save them millions of dollars as they built an opulent, 50-story residential tower in this city’s booming waterfront district, just across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan…

They worked with state officials in New Jersey to come up with a map that defined the area around 65 Bay Street as a swath of land that stretched nearly four miles and included some of the city’s poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods. At the same time, they excluded some wealthy neighborhoods only blocks away.

The tactic — critics liken it to the gerrymandering of legislative districts…

MORE: How Jared Kushner built a luxury skyscraper using loans meant for job-starved areas – The Washington Post

Australian Kogan NEW Agora 8 SMART phone $199

A dual-SIM, 4G, 5 inch, Quad-Core smartphone running Android 7: Sounds pretty good – likely pretty expensive. Nope.  Kogan is back with their 2017 Flagship smartphone the Kogan Agora 8 and at a pre-sale price of $199.

The price is pretty darn good given the Kogan Agora 6 is still available at Kogan.com for either $199 or $349, with those in 16GB and 32GB configuration, one can only assume the Kogan Agora 8 will have minimal storage (16GB) though the spec sheet we have doesn’t tell us that.  It is expandable up to 128GB via a MicroSD in place of a second SIM card.

These phones are not made to challenge Samsung, they are made to compete with the mid to lower end smartphones and they do it very well.

Source: Kogan’s new smartphone: Kogan Agora 8 – $199 – EFTM

Gemma Arterton/Bill Nighy in Their Finest in tale of Britain’s finest hour

Their finest (12A)

Verdict: Beguiling wartime drama 

Rating:

Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy in Their Finest

Their project, one designed not only to repair morale left in tatters by the Luftwaffe, but also to persuade the Americans to come to the aid of the plucky Brits, is a film based on a newspaper story about heroic twin sisters from Essex.

Catrin is despatched to Southend to get the sisters’ story; how they borrowed their father’s rickety fishing boat and braved the Channel to rescue troops trapped at Dunkirk. Never mind that it isn’t entirely true; facts are pliable in wartime.

Besides, if all that were not rousing enough, one of the Dunkirk survivors brings home a terrier in his kitbag.

‘Authenticity, optimism, and a dog!’ cries the producer, Hungarian émigré Gabriel Baker (Henry Goodman), presumably based on the great filmmaker Emeric Pressburger. He knows just how to appeal to British sensibilities.

Their Finest is a serious tale, however. It is littered with casualties of war and lurches in some unexpected directions with several, tragic twists. Yet it is leavened with plenty of deft comic touches.

Source: Gemma Arterton leads cast in tale of Britain’s finest hour | Daily Mail Online

Cringey: Melania nudged Trump to remind him to raise his hand for Anthem

Dramatic photos show asylum seekers crossing into Canada

Heartbreaking photos show asylum seekers flooding into Canada across unmanned borders every day from the United States amid fears of a Donald Trump presidency.

MORE HERE: Dramatic photos show asylum seekers crossing into Canada | Daily Mail Online