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'How Many Wickets Have Fallen?' Bihar's Health Minister Mangal Pandey Asks During Meet On Encephalitis

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Bihar’s health minister Mangal Pandey has faced widespread criticism as more than a hundred children have died in the state from acute encephalitis syndrome. Now, he has landed into more trouble after ANI tweeted a video of him asking for the score of the World Cup match between India and Pakistan on Sunday, during a state health department meeting on the crisis. 

Kitna wicket hua tha (how many wickets have fallen till now),” Pandey, who is from the BJP, is seen asking reporters. 

Then he is seen worrying about whether the match will get washed out because of the rain. 

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was also present at the press conference when Pandey asked the question. 

Opposition parties have criticised Pandey, saying he seemed to be more concerned about cricket than children dying in the state. 

Congress leader Randeep Surjewala took to Twitter, asking for the solution to the crisis. 

RJD leader Ram Chandra Purve, according to IANS, also criticised the minister saying, “Pandey was more interested in knowing the cricket score while Harsh Vardhan was telling media persons on their plans to alleviate the situation arising from the encephalitis outbreak.”

Pandey’s callousness over the issue does not end here.HuffPost India reported on Tuesday that Pandey got himself an exclusive ambulance to accompany his entourage as he visited short-staffed hospitals, even though convoy protocol does not allow for it. 

An ambulance manned by a doctor, a nurse, a blood bank technician, an emergency medical technician and a driver was sent to accompany his convoy when he visited Muzaffarpur on 14 June. This was despite the shortage of ambulances for children dying of encephalitis. 


Sarfaraz's Warning To Pakistan Team: 'Get Ready To Face The Public's Wrath Back Home'

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MANCHESTER — Drawing flak after the loss to India, Pakistan skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed has warned his teammates of further backlash at home if they fail to lift their game in the remaining matches of the ongoing World Cup

Pakistani cricketers are facing strong criticism from both fans and former players after the 89-run defeat to India in the marquee World Cup clash on Sunday.

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With just three points from five games, Pakistan are at the second last position in the tournament table and Sarfaraz has cautioned his teammates to be ready for the wrath of the public back home if the below-par performances continue.

“If anyone thinks that I will go home, then it is their idiocy. If God forbid something unfortunate happens then I won’t be the only one going back home,” Pakistani media outlet, ‘thenews.com.pk’, quoted Sarfaraz as saying.

Sarfaraz’s captaincy was called “brainless” by former pacer Shoaib Akhtar, while Shoaib Malik, who was out for a first-ball duck in the game against India, found himself in the eye of a storm after videos of a night-out with Indian tennis star wife Sania Mirza went viral on social media.

The captain has urged the team to forget the loss against the neighbours and move on.

“Forget the bad performance and uplift the team for the remaining four matches,” said Sarfaraz.

Pakistan will next play South Africa on 23 June in London.

Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi Quietly Buried One Day After Courtroom Collapse

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Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi, has been buried a day after his collapse and death inside a Cairo courtroom.

Morsi’s family attended funeral prayers in the mosque of Cairo’s Tora prison, followed by the burial at a cemetery in the city’s western district of Nasr City, said Abdul-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud, a member of his defence team.

Morsi’s son, Ahmed, said security agencies refused to allow Morsi to be buried at the family’s cemetery in his hometown in Sharqia province, and instead had him interred at a Cairo cemetery dedicated to prominent Islamists.

Security agents turned reporters away from the cemetery, banning them from taking photographs of the funeral. Reporters were also barred from travelling to Morsi’s hometown.

Morsi, 67, hailed from Egypt’s largest Islamist group, the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and was elected president in 2012 in the country’s first free elections following the ousting the year before of long-time leader Hosni Mubarak.

Mohammed Morsi, pictured in 2012 

The military toppled Morsi in 2013 after massive protests and crushed the Brotherhood in a major crackdown, arresting Morsi and many others of the group’s leaders.

During his years in prison, Morsi, who was known to have diabetes, was often held in solitary confinement and was largely barred from receiving visitors. His family was only allowed to visit three times. While in detention, Morsi continued to appear in court on a range of charges.

In early court sessions he gave angry speeches until judges ordered him to be kept in a glass cage where they could turn off his audio.

The Brotherhood has accused the government of “assassinating” him through years of poor prison conditions. The group demanded an international investigation into Morsi’s death and called on Egyptians to protest outside Egyptian embassies across the world.

Egypt’s chief prosecutor said Morsi’s body would be examined to determine the cause of his death. State TV, citing an unnamed medical source, said he died after suffering a heart attack.

Morsi collapsed just after he had addressed the court, speaking from inside the glass cage and warning that he had “many secrets” he could reveal, a judicial official said.

In his final comments, he continued to insist he was Egypt’s legitimate president, demanding a special tribunal, one of his defence lawyers, Kamel Madour told The Associated Press. State TV said Morsi died before he could be taken to hospital.

Why Are We Still Cutting Women's Vaginas During Childbirth?

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Just as Rachel was about to start pushing out her first baby, her OB-GYN told a medical student who was shadowing her she was going to cut an episiotomy.

“She said, basically, ‘We know it’s going to be a big baby, so we’re not going to take any chances with it getting stuck,’” recalled Rachel, who asked HuffPost to use a pseudonym for privacy reasons. “I was like, ‘Wait, what?’”

The doctor made a cut in Rachel’s vaginal wall, while she screamed in pain and confusion. She felt everything. By that point, the epidural she’d gotten hours before had worn off.

After Rachel delivered her daughter, her OB-GYN stitched her back up. Rachel didn’t notice the pain as much then, distracted by the new 9 pound, 5 ounce baby trying to latch onto her breast.

But in the following days and weeks she felt it constantly. Peeing burned so much Rachel cried and doused her vagina in Dermoplast pain spray. Sitting was excruciating. After five months, things started to feel relatively normal again. But sex with her husband hurt for a full year. 

“It was miserable,” Rachel told HuffPost. 

For decades, OB-GYNS performed episiotomies as a routine part of childbirth, snipping the tissue between the vaginal opening and anus to give emerging babies more room. Doctors believed that proactively cutting laboring women saved them from developing more serious, less manageable tears and helped with delivery. By exercising some level of control over the tearing, they also believed they were giving women’s pelvic floors a better shot at making a full recovery.

But none of that was really true. Although episiotomy can serve an important purpose in cases when a baby’s shoulder is stuck behind a woman’s pelvic bone, for example, or when a baby must be helped out with a vacuum or forceps (a circumstance that arises in about 3 percent of deliveries in the United States), doctors eventually realized there was no evidence to suggest it helped in most deliveries. Women’s bodies are, by and large, pretty adept at getting babies out and most of the time cutting their vaginal walls isn’t required to help the process along. 

So about 15 years ago, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) updated its guidelines saying for the first time that routine episiotomy was not recommended.

Since then, the best available data suggests episiotomy rates have dropped by a lot. In 2000, 33 percent of vaginal births in this country involved episiotomy. By 2012, it was closer to 12 percent. But there is significant variation in who gets the procedure. A 2015 study found, for example, that white women are more likely to get an episiotomy than black women, and that women with commercial insurance have higher rates than those on Medicaid. This May, The Leapfrog Group, a patient safety organization that directly compares hospitals, released new data putting the rate at hospitals it tracked at around 7 percent in 2018.

But the data isn’t great. Most of those numbers come from administrative data that relies on coding in hospital records, rather than clinical charts. “What we know from administrative data sets is that there can be a lot of errors,” Dr. Barbara Levy, ACOG’s vice president of health policy, told HuffPost. “If you don’t have clinical knowledge, it can be difficult to tell the difference between a tear and a purposeful cut.”

The overall (though still somewhat murky) picture that emerges is that episiotomy in this country is certainly less common than it was decades ago, but still happening. Too often? About right? With somewhat thin data and no agreed-upon “ideal” rates, no one can really say. As is the case with obstetric care so often this country, a woman’s experience may be entirely shaped by the provider she sees and the institution where she delivers.

Stories like Rachel’s suggest, however, that there are OB-GYNs who continue to perform episiotomies routinely. Although Levy with ACOG declined to comment on the specifics of that case and whether an episiotomy was appropriate, she conceded that practice recommendations from groups like ACOG can take a long time to filter down. 

In the meantime, the onus often falls on women to have conversations with their providers about their episiotomy practices — a challenge because it is, understandably, not something many women have even heard of. 

“As a patient, you want to be having frank conversations with your provider group,” Levy said. “You want to know, what are the circumstances where you might perform an episiotomy? Will I have a chance to make that decision with you? Under what circumstances would it be considered an emergency situation where that would happen without my decision?” Women should ask their providers for information on their episiotomy rates, she said, in the same way they’d ask about C-section rates. 

Because this is not a simple case of episiotomy bad, letting women tear naturally good.

In some instances, an episiotomy with a forceps delivery might prevent a C-section delivery, and that might be a decision a woman and her doctor make together in the moment based on her particular circumstances and wishes, Levy said. Other times — like if a baby’s shoulder is stuck — a doctor might make the decision to perform an episiotomy right away without input. It would not, as Levy put it, be a “discussion item” in the heat of the moment. 

“These are things that should be talked about in advance, and why it is important for women to have a trusting relationship with their provider,” Levy said. 

Because as Rachel found, recovery can be hard. The wound takes time to heal and, like all cuts, runs the risk of infection. Research also now shows that episiotomy can increase a woman’s risk of anal incontinence. 

“That’s the biggest concern,” said Dr. Amy Rosenman, an OB-GYN and expert in female pelvic medicine with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Women can develop sphincter incompetence and begin leaking stool. And unfortunately there is no good solution for that. It is a life-long issue.” 

Rosenman emphasized that the far more common outcome is that women’s bodies slowly recover over a period of several weeks and months. But even that best-case scenario adds an additional layer of pain and complication to the postpartum period, which is already wildly intense.

At a postpartum check-up with her OB-GYN, Rachel brought up her episiotomy and how painful she was finding the recovery to be. 

“She was basically like, ‘You’ll live and it will heal,’ Rachel said. “And she wasn’t wrong. I did live, and it did heal. But it was traumatic.”

Journalism Is So Rare Now That We Celebrate The Few Who Do It

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TV9 Bharatvarsh reporter Rupesh Kumar is receiving a lot of praise for his coverage of the devastating encephalitis crisis in Bihar in which over a 100 children have died.

A particular clip of Kumar questioning a BJP leader allowed inside the ICU of a hospital in Muzaffarpur — even as Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan was present there — is making the rounds online, prompting people to call Kumar a hero.

In the video, Kumar is seen grilling the politician, asking him why he had been allowed into a space barred to the public and the media. 

Kumar asks the the BJP leader why he was sitting in the nurse’s chair. “Are you a doctor?”

The reporter’s relentless questioning of the BJP worker’s presence prompts enough embarrassment for him to step out of the ICU and remove his shoes.

Online, people have hailed the journalist’s work.

This willingness to question the ineffectiveness of public services is typical of Kumar’s reporting.

In April, during Narendra Modi’s election campaign, he had spoken to vendors in Varanasi who had been asked to shut shop and move away from the ghats of Ganga for two days — at the cost of their livelihood — ahead of the prime minister’s visit to the city. 

The same month he also reported on the state of the Patna Medical College, Bihar’s biggest government hospital, after an ill man was found unconscious at the hospital’s main gate. In his report, Kumar is seen questioning the delay in the control room’s response and the apathy of the security personnel nearby.

It’s not difficult to understand why Kumar’s reporting is being hailed. It’s the kind of TV journalism we hardly ever see anymore.

Praise for such reporting is heartening at a time when Indian media seems to bow to the pressures of those in power. But it is also important to remember that this should not be a rarity.

This is the work expected of all journalists. Questioning those in power and exposing those who abuse it is not only a fundamental function of journalism, but also essential to a healthy democracy. 

Take the Bihar’s current health crisis.

Minister of state health and family welfare, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, had to  defend himself after he was seen nodding off at a press conference on the situation in the state.

Bihar’s health minister was heard callously asking how many wickets had fallen in the World Cup match between India and Pakistan on Sunday, in the midst of a press conference on the crisis.

Just today, HuffPost India reported on how the same minister got an exclusive ambulance for his convoy even as the encephalitis crisis in the state spiralled out of control. 

At a time when leaders seem to be shirking accountability and responsibility while dealing with a crisis, the function of the media becomes more critical. This sort of media coverage must be rule, not the exception.

Bihar Encephalitis: Nitish Kumar Met With Protests By Angry Relatives In Muzaffarpur

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MUZAFFARPUR — Public grief gave way to outrage in Muzaffarpur on Tuesday when angry people raised slogans as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar held a meeting with officials to take stock of the Acute Encephalitis Syndrome outbreak, which has claimed the lives of over 100 children.

The death toll has climbed to 105 with both the SKMCH hospital and the privately owned Kejriwal hospital reporting one casualty during the night, the district administration said.

Kumar, who had been away in New Delhi since Saturday, returned to the state capital Monday evening and held an emergency review meeting on the AES situation with officials. He visited Muzaffarpur for the first time on Tuesday.

After the meeting, the government declared it would bear the expense for treatment of those found with the syndrome even if it took place at private hospitals.

Instructions were also issued for equipping primary health centres with necessary facilities so that children with symptoms of AES in remote areas could be provided with medical attention closer home since, in several cases, the time involved in travelling to the district headquarters and seeking admission to hospitals had led to worsening of the condition of patients.

On Tuesday morning, Kumar rushed to the SKMCH hospital in Muzaffarpur, where more than 300 children have been admitted with complaints of AES since 1 June. Close to 90 of them have died.

The chief minister, who was flanked by his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi and cabinet colleague and local MLA Suresh Sharma, went to the ICU inside the hospital to take stock of the situation before holding an impromptu review meeting with hospital authorities and other health department officials.

In the meantime, hordes of people gathered outside the hospital and started shouting slogans like “Nitish Kumar go back”, angry over the chief minister choosing to visit the city only after the number of casualties had crossed the three-digit mark.

Speaking to journalists, they pointed out to a water tanker.

“This is today’s development. Things are being spruced up so that it makes a favourable impression on the chief minister. Had the CM visited earlier, it would have made the concerned people pull up their socks and many lives could have been saved,” one of them said.

A team of Union health department officials visited the district over the weekend and clarified that AES was an umbrella of symptoms, unlike Japanese Encephalitis which was a viral infection.

The symptoms include high fever, convulsions and extremely low level of sugar in the blood. Among the factors said to trigger the syndrome are malnutrition.

Moreover, the litchi grown in Muzaffarpur is said to contain a toxin which can cause a drop in blood sugar levels if consumed by a malnourished child.

'Greatest Of All Time': Ranveer Singh Can't Get Enough Of 'Kaptaan' Virat

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LONDON — Ranveer Singh is all praise for Virat Kohli after the Indian cricket captain led the Men in Blue towards victory in the match against Pakistan in the ongoing ICC World Cup 2019, calling him the “greatest of all time” cricketer.

Kohli-led India thrashed Pakistan by 89 runs on 16 June in Manchester.

Ranveer, who attended the game at Old Trafford, said he is impressed the way Kohli had evolved as a player.

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“I’ve been a die-hard fan of Indian cricket since childhood. Invested so much emotion into our beloved team. Willing and wanting them to be the undisputed best in the world. And then, there was Virat Kohli.

“I’ve witnessed a brash boy evolve into the very embodiment of class. Displaying a rare brand of ferocity and passionate expression, he changed the face of Indian cricket forever,” he tweeted on Tuesday.

The Simmba star said he was proud of Kohli.

“He’s well on his way to being hailed as the greatest of all time. Leading our country like a true alpha warrior. Yeh naya India hai, aur yeh banda naye India ka hero hai (This is a new India, and this guy is the hero of the new India)” Ranveer said, sharing a few pictures with Kohli from the post match presentation ceremony.

The actor previously shared photos with cricket icons Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Brian Lara and current Indian playing XI Hardik Pandya, Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul.

Ranveer is shooting for his next “83” in Glasgow.

Puppy Dog Eyes Are A Real Thing, Say Scientists – As These 21 Adorable Pooches Show

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Dogs didn’t always give us those infamous puppy dog eyes, but they do now – all thanks to evolution.

New research comparing the anatomy and behaviour of dogs and wolves suggests dogs’ facial anatomy has changed over thousands of years – specifically to allow them to better communicate with humans.

This includes the development of a small muscle around the eyes, which allows them to raise their inner eyebrow more intensely, giving them that undeniably cute, I’m-sorry-please-love-me-and-feed-me-treats look. 

The study’s authors suggest this triggers a nurturing response in humans, because it makes dogs’ eyes appear larger and more “infant-like” when they are sad.

[Read More: Off-lead adventure park for dogs opens – and it looks pawsome]

“The evidence is compelling that dogs developed a muscle to raise the inner eyebrow after they were domesticated from wolves,” said psychologist Dr Juliane Kaminski, from the University of Portsmouth. “We also studied dogs’ and wolves’ behaviour, and when exposed to a human for two minutes, dogs raised their inner eyebrows more and at higher intensities than wolves.”

It’s something most dog owners have felt powerless in the face of at some point – so in homage to our four-legged friends, here are 21 pics of puppy dog eyes in action. You’re most welcome.

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Ellen DeGeneres Actually Teased Her Taylor Swift Music Video Cameo Weeks Ago

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Ellen DeGeneres’ cameo in Taylor Swift’s new music video for the anti-homophobia anthem “You Need To Calm Down” should really have come as no surprise.

It turns out that the host of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” actually dropped major hints about her appearance in the video in an interview with the pop star that aired mid-May.

DeGeneres noted during their lengthy televised sit-down how Swift had a new video coming out and quipped, “I think you said you wanted me in it?”

The audience laughed, likely because they thought it was a joke.

Swift replied, “yeah, I mean, that would be a dream, would you wanna do that?”

DeGeneres pretended to deliberate and then agreed.

Swift later revealed she’d left a so-called “Easter Egg” during their chat ― which many fans interpreted to be DeGeneres’ cameo.

Check out the conversation from the 14-minute mark here:

Fans were inevitably stunned by the revelation that had apparently been hidden in plain sight all along:

Katy Perry, Ryan Reynolds, Laverne Cox, RuPaul, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Billy Porter, Adam Rippon, Ciara and Hayley Kiyoko are among the other celebrities to feature in the video for Swift’s second song from her new album, “Lover.”

Check it out here:

Facebook Announces Libra Cryptocurrency: What You Need To Know

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SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK — Facebook Inc revealed plans on Tuesday to launch a cryptocurrency called Libra, the latest development in its effort to expand beyond social networking and move into e-commerce and global payments.

Facebook has linked with 28 partners in a Geneva-based entity called the Libra Association, which will govern its new digital coin set to launch in the first half of 2020, according to marketing materials and interviews with executives.

Facebook has also created a subsidiary called Calibra, which will offer digital wallets to save, send and spend Libras. Calibra will be connected to Facebook’s messaging platforms Messenger and WhatsApp, which already boast more than a billion users.

The Menlo Park, California-based company has big aspirations for Libra, but consumer privacy concerns or regulatory barriers may present significant hurdles.

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Facebook hopes it will not only power transactions between established consumers and businesses around the globe, but offer unbanked consumers access to financial services for the first time.

The name “Libra” was inspired by Roman weight measurements, the astrological sign for justice and the French word for freedom, said David Marcus, a former PayPal executive who heads the project for Facebook.

“Freedom, justice and money, which is exactly what we’re trying to do here,” he said.

Facebook also appears to be betting it can squeeze revenue out of its messaging services through transactions and payments, something that is already happening on Chinese social apps like WeChat.

The Libra announcement comes as Facebook is grappling with public backlash due to a series of scandals, and may face opposition from privacy advocates, consumer groups, regulators and lawmakers.

Some Facebook adversaries have called for the company to incur penalties, or be forcibly broken up, for mishandling user data, allowing troubling material to appear on its site and not preventing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election through a social media disinformation campaign. 

It is not clear how lawmakers or regulators will react to Facebook making a push into financial services through the largely unregulated world of cryptocurrency.

In recent years, cryptocurrency investors have lost hundreds of millions of dollars through hacks, and the market has been plagued by accusations of money-laundering, illegal drug sales and terrorist financing.

Facebook has engaged with regulators in the United States and abroad about the planned cryptocurrency, company executives said. They would not specify which regulators or whether the company has applied for financial licenses anywhere.

Facebook hopes it can bring global regulators to the table by publicising Libra, said Kevin Weil, who runs product for the initiative.

“It gives us a basis to go and have productive conversations with regulators around the world,” said Weil. “We’re eager to do that.”

Major partners

Bitcoin, the most well-known cryptocurrency, was created in 2008 as a way for pseudonymous users to transfer value online through encrypted digital ledgers. Early developers believed that the world needed an alternative to traditional currencies, which are controlled by governments and by central banks.

Since then, thousands of bitcoin alternatives have launched, and Facebook is just one of dozens of blue-chip companies dabbling with the underlying technology. But its status as a Silicon Valley behemoth that touches billions of people around the world has created significant buzz around Libra’s potential.

Partners in the project include household names like Mastercard Inc, Visa Inc, Spotify Technology SA, PayPal Holdings Inc, eBay Inc, Uber Technologies Inc and Vodafone Group Plc, as well as venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz.

They hope to have 100 members by Libra’s launch during the first half of 2020. Each member gets one vote on substantial decisions regarding the cryptocurrency network and firms must invest at least $10 million to join. Facebook does not plan to maintain a leadership role after 2019.

Though there are no banks among the inaugural members, there have been discussions with a number of lenders about joining, said Jorn Lambert, executive vice president for digital solutions at Mastercard. They are waiting to see how regulators and consumers respond to the project before deciding whether to join, he said.

The Libra Association plans to raise money through a private placement in the coming months, according to a statement from the association.

Privacy, regulatory concerns

Although Libra-backers who spoke to Reuters or provided materials are hopeful about its prospects, some expressed awareness that consumer privacy concerns or regulatory barriers may prevent the project from succeeding.

Calibra will conduct compliance checks on customers who want to use Libra, using verification and anti-fraud processes that are common among banks, Facebook said.

The subsidiary will only share customer data with Facebook or external parties if it has consent, or in “limited cases” where it is necessary, Facebook said. That could include for law enforcement, public safety or general system functionality.

Transactions will cost individuals less than merchants, Facebook said, though executives declined to provide specifics. Each Libra will be backed by a basket of government-backed assets.

The company plans to refund customers who lose money because of fraud, Facebook said.

Sri Shivananda, Paypal’s chief technology officer said in an interview that the project is still in its “very, very early days,” and there were conversations in progress with regulators.

Mastercard’s Lambert characterized Libra similarly, noting much needed to happen before the launch.

If the project receives too much regulatory pushback, he said, “we might not launch.”

BuzzFeed Employees Stage Walkout Over Stalled Union Recognition

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Members of the BuzzFeed News team work at their desks at BuzzFeed headquarters in New York. Employees at the internet media and news company have been demanding that management recognize their union.

BuzzFeed News employees across the US staged a walkout Monday to demand voluntary recognition of their union after months of failed negotiations with management.

Employees at all four of BuzzFeed News’ bureaus ― in New York, D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco ― left their newsrooms to demand recognition of their union with the NewsGuild of New York, the organisation said.

BuzzFeed employees announced their union’s formation in February after 15% of its workforce was laid off. More than 90% of eligible editorial employees joined the unionisation effort at the time, and a request to recognise the union was sent to BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, the group said in a statement.

BuzzFeed’s management had said it was prepared to recognise the union, the NewsGuild said, though there have been stalemates during their monthslong negotiations with workers.

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, in an email to staff on Monday, claimed a deal had not yet been finalised because of additional demands by the union, and said management made an offer two weeks ago that was turned down.

“Despite what you may hear to the contrary, we continue to have ongoing, daily communication between our lawyers, and we are confident the proposal provides a strong basis on which to move forward with the collective bargaining process,” Peretti said in the email, obtained by CNN’s Oliver Darcy. “Our offer is a good one and it remains on the table today.”

BuzzFeed’s union, in what appeared to be a response to Peretti’s email, called the management’s proposal “an unacceptable take-it-or-leave-it deal.”

“We demand that they continue working with us to reach a voluntary recognition agreement that does this newsroom justice,” read a message on the union’s Twitter account.

“Our members have grown tired of management stalling, and demand they return to the table in good faith,” Grant Glickson, president of the NewsGuild of New York, said in a statement on Monday. “The BuzzFeed newsroom has the full support of the entire NewsGuild membership, and we are with them every step of the way.”

“I hope BuzzFeed management could see this as an opportunity to show that they respect and value their employees, rather than reacting out of fear,” said BuzzFeed News deputy culture editor Rachel Sanders. “I hope they come back to the table so we can have a real conversation.”

BuzzFeed employees have cited diversity, unfair pay disparities, layoffs, weak benefits and health insurance costs among the issues they hope to address by unionizing.

I hope they come back to the table so we can have a real conversation.BuzzFeed News deputy culture editor Rachel Sanders

Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

In April, employees’ unionization efforts received support from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio after the site’s executives bailed on a negotiation meeting.

“You didn’t just snub [BuzzFeed News’ union] yesterday, you insulted all working New Yorkers,” the mayor tweeted, while reminding BuzzFeed’s executives that New York is a “union town.”

The national NewsGuild is the largest union for news professionals in the US. Its members include Law360, Mashable, New York magazine, Sports Illustrated, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, Thomson Reuters and Time magazine. Some members expressed their support of BuzzFeed’s union on social media on Monday.

HuffPost joined the Writers Guild of America, East, after its management voluntarily recognized its union in 2016. It ratified its first union contract in 2017.

Taylor Swift Explains How Katy Perry's You Need To Calm Down Video Cameo Came To Be

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Taylor Swift has revealed what led to her reconciliation with Katy Perry, after featuring the singer in her latest music video.

Since 2014, Taylor and Katy had been involved in one of the most prolific pop feuds of recent times, as documented in their songs Bad Blood and Swish Swish.

However, last year it was reported that the beef was finally over, when Katy sent Taylor a literal olive branch in the post, and she has since made an appearance in her You Need To Calm Down video, where the two were seen sharing a hug and putting their differences aside once and for all (while dressed as a burger and fries, naturally).

Katy Perry and Taylor Swift

Explaining how they came to be friends again, Taylor said on Monday’s Capital breakfast show: “She and I have really been on good terms for a while. She sent me a really nice note and an olive branch – like an actual olive branch – to my tour when it started. From that point on we’ve been on good terms.

“Then we saw each other at a party and walked up to each other and hugged it out and talked about things, and then we saw each other again and hung out at another party and it was just like something felt so much lighter about my life when things became really good between us.”

Taylor added that she didn’t want to go public with their renewed friendship until it was “solid”, a point they’ve finally reached, if their latest collaboration is anything to go by.

Taylor and Katy at the American Music Awards in 2011

As well as her old-pal-turned-nemesis-turned-new-pal, Taylor also features a host of celebrity cameos in the You Need To Calm Down video, including the Queer Eye Fab Five, a host of stars from RuPaul’s Drag Race and Orange Is The New Black actress Laverne Cox.

Check out the full list of celebrity appearances here.

Nicholas Sparks Apologizes To LGBTQ Community

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Nicholas Sparks is apologizing to “members of the LGBTQ community” in the wake of the release of emails that appear to back the claims of a former employee who accused the author of homophobia.

“The Notebook” author posted a Facebook statement on Monday saying he failed to be “unequivocal” in his support for LGBTQ students at the Epiphany School of Global Studies, a private K-12 Christian school Sparks co-founded.

“As someone who has spent the better part of my life as a writer who understands the power of words, I regret and apologize that mine have potentially hurt young people and members of the LGBTQ community, including my friends and colleagues in that community,” Sparks wrote.

Saul Hillel Benjamin, the former headmaster of Epiphany, filed a lawsuit against Sparks and the school’s Board of Trustees in 2014 accusing the author of willfully keeping minority students out of the school, banning students’ exposure to non-Christian faiths and discouraging staff from helping bullied LGBTQ students.

Sparks has denied the allegations. But emails obtained by The Daily Beast last week appear to back at least some of Benjamin’s claims. 

Benjamin alleged Sparks told him “black students are too poor and can’t do the academic work” asked of the school’s students. In one November 2013 email from Sparks obtained by The Daily Beast, the writer said the school’s lack of diversity “has nothing to do with racism” but rather “money” and “culture.”

The former headmaster also said Sparks supported a group of students who had bullied the school’s LGBTQ students and shot down an attempt by faculty and students to form a school club for LGBTQ students, which he said the author dismissively called “the Gay Club.” Benjamin also alleged two bisexual instructors were threatened with termination when they came forward to support LGBTQ students.

In a separate email obtained by The Daily Beast, Sparks told Benjamin he “chose to rock this boat early and hard ... with what some perceive as an agenda that strives to make homosexuality open and accepted. ... As for the ‘Club,’ there obviously can’t be one now.”

In his apology on Monday, Sparks expressed his support for “the principle that all individuals should be free to love, marry and have children with the person they choose, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.”

He also attempted to address the dispute surrounding the LGBTQ club, saying he didn’t object to the group but rather to how it was being formed.

“My concern was that if a club were to be founded, it be done in a thoughtful, transparent manner with the knowledge of faculty, students and parents — not in secret, and not in a way that felt exceptional,” Sparks wrote. “I only wish I had used those exact words.”

The author didn’t directly respond to the allegations of racism in his apology on Monday, but said his emails lacked “deliberation” and were sent at a time when he was “besieged by vociferous complaints” about Benjamin.

A federal judge last year determined a jury should decide whether Sparks defamed Benjamin by allegedly suggesting to other board members the former headmaster had Alzheimer’s and also whether Benjamin resigned or was pressured to quit. That same judge dismissed Benjamin’s claims that he was forced out due to his attempts to diversify the student population at Epiphany and that his Jewish background played a role in his lost employment, according to The Associated Press.

The case is expected to go to trial in August.

Mamata Banerjee To Skip Modi's All-Party Meet Tomorrow On 'One Nation, One Election'

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NEW DELHI — West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday excused herself from the scheduled meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with political party chiefs on Wednesday, while asking the government to prepare a white paper on ‘one nation, one election’ instead of doing it “hurriedly”. 

Modi has invited heads of all parties who have an MP either in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha for a meeting on 19 June to discuss several issues including the “one nation, one election” idea, celebration of the 75 years of Independence in 2022 and 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

It will be followed by a dinner-meeting with all MPs on 20 June.

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In a letter to the Prahlad Joshi, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Banerjee has said that the matter requires consultations with experts.

“A proper response on such a sensitive and serious subject like the “One Country, one election” in such a short time would not do justice to the subject it deserves. The matter requires consultations with constitutional experts, elections experts and above all the party members.

“Instead of doing the matter hurriedly, I would request you to kindly circulate a white paper on the subject to all political parties inviting their views by providing adequate time. If you only do so, we will be able to give concrete suggestions on this important subject,” she wrote.

She further stated that regarding the development of aspirational districts, her party Trinamool Congress had already conveyed that they are not in support of selection of a few districts as it would not conform to the overall objectives of achieving balanced and uniform development of all the districts of the state.

“Our state is committed to ensuring social and economic development of all districts uniformly so that regional imbalances do not rise,” she said. 

She also said that she and her party would participate wholeheartedly in the 75 years of Independence in 2022 and 150 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary this year but stated that the issue regarding ways to improve the productivity of Parliament was a matter of the Lower House and should be dealt with by the concerned ministry.

Banerjee had skipped the Niti Aayog meeting also last week.

Teen Daughter Walked In On Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos Having Sex

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Talk show host Kelly Ripa and husband Mark Consuelos might want to consider locking their bedroom door — but then again the world would be deprived of relatable moments like the one they shared on Monday,

Consuelos, the “Riverdale” star filling in for Ryan Seacrest on “Live With Kelly and Ryan” Monday, declared “it happened again.”

The two offered a funny explanation of how their 18-year-old daughter Lola walked in on them having sex on Father’s Day, which also happened to be Lola’s birthday.

Not the present she was looking for.

“You just ruined my birthday and my life,” Ripa quoted her as saying. “And I used to see color and now everything is gray.”

Lola gave her parents no quarter at brunch either ― with her grandpa and aunt at the table.

Watch the segment below.


Will 'Jai Sri Ram' Slogans In Parliament Be The New Norm With BJP's Massive Majority?

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It has been two days since the first Parliament session for the 17th Lok Sabha began, and the 353 NDA MPs who have been elected are already trying to make their presence felt. 

This time, many of the newly elected MPs took oath to background chants of ‘Jai Sri Ram’, ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.

ANI reported that as the protem speaker Virendra Kumar took his chair at 11 am on Tuesday, he was greeted with chants of ‘Jai Sri Ram’.  

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Slogans of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ were heard after each and every BJP MP took oath on Monday, not only from those looking on, but also from those who took oath. BJP’s Hema Malini ended her oath with ‘Radhe Radhe’. Attempts were made by Kumar to stop the MPs, but the sloganeering continued in an apparent attempt to provoke opposition MPs. 

The sloganeering spilled on to Day 2, getting louder when Rahul Gandhi, AIMIM’s chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Samajwadi Party’s Sambhal Shafiqur Rahman Barq took oath. 

In videos doing the rounds of social media, Owaisi was seen asking the BJP MPs to chant even louder as he walked over to the well of the house. BJP MPs tried to drown Owaisi out with their chants as he read out his oath in Urdu. The three-time MP had a perfect response and ended his oath with ‘Jai Bheem, Jai Meem, Takbir! Allahu Akbar! Jai Hind!’ in reply to the sloganeering. 

Owaisi’s party AIMIM had come up with the ‘Jai Bheem, Jai Meem’ slogan to unite Muslims and Dalits.

SP’s Barq also took his oath in Urdu and said ‘Constitution Zindabad’. He said, “I won’t say Vande Mataram as it is against Islam.”

Members of the treasury benches protested and demanded an apology from him. The retorts from Owaisi and Barq, in the face of provocation, made for great viral videos, but raised questions about what is to come in the next five years in Parliament, which has only 27 Muslim MPs (up from 22 in 2014). 

While Parliament sessions have frequently seen scuffles and name-calling, the attempts to deliberately provoke MPs from minority communities indicates a worrying turn As the BJP-led government begins its second term with an even larger majority than in 2014, it is likely that the party’s MPs will repeat such acts with impunity in the absence of a strong Opposition. 

The BJP led an extremely divisive campaign in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The Ram Mandir issue was brought to the forefront by party bigwigs like Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. With divisive figures like Pragya Thakur and Giriraj Singh, who led openly communal campaigns, becoming part of the elected majority, it is unlikely that the ‘Jai Sri Ram’ slogans will die down soon. Thakur, in fact, had ended her oath by saying ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.

The chanting of slogans in the first two days comes despite Modi saying the opposition was important for parliamentary democracy. On Monday he had said, “The opposition need not bother about their numbers. I hope they speak actively and participate in House proceedings.”

How Bihar Lost 3-Year-Old Khushi To Encephalitis—And Why It'll Probably Happen Again

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MUZAFFARPUR, Bihar —  As the piercing sound of a heartbeat flatlining filled the children’s intensive care unit of a government hospital in Bihar, doctors and nurses fell silent.

Many of them had heard it far too often over the past few days, but that didn’t take away from the sadness and regret they felt.

This time, the sound marked the death of Khushi, a three-year-old with a shock of unruly hair, from AES (Acute Encephalitis Syndrome), a deadly inflammation of the brain that kills hundreds of children in India every year.  

Her mother, a thin woman in a green sari, let out a wail as she clasped her daughter’s small frame, entangled in gauze and tubes. Her father, a frail man with sunken eyes, did not make a sound as he squatted near the foot of the bed, which his daughter had been sharing with a girl named Julie.

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There are only 34 beds for AES-hit children at the Shree Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) in Muzaffarpur, around 90km from Patna.

Gasping between sobs, Sunita Devi, in her early 20s, said, “She was playing last night. The seizures started in the morning, and now she is gone. She is gone in a few hours.”  

More than 100 children have died in Muzaffarpur district, the epicentre of AES or “chamki bukhaar” (brain fever), widespread in poor communities that don’t have access to nutritious food and sanitation. Apart from Khushi, at least 82 other children have died just in SKMCH this summer.

AES kills children in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh every year, but long heat spells and humidity make some years worse than others.

This is the deadliest AES outbreak in Bihar since 2014, when 355 children died—117 at SKMCH alone.

Now that the national media has turned its attention to the hundreds of AES-related deaths in Bihar, the Nitish Kumar government is scrambling to save face, and failing.

The government’s unpreparedness can be traced to multiple factors: apathy, a healthcare system crippled by a lack of doctors and its failure to educate the most vulnerable communities about AES.

This year, say stakeholders, the situation has been particularly alarming.

Tamanna Hashmi, a social activist from Muzaffarpur, said, “They do next to nothing to prepare communities for AES, but because of the election this year, they actually did nothing.”

J.P. Mandal, a doctor at SKMCH, said, “AES is endemic here, but right now it is an epidemic. We were not prepared.”  

Another doctor at SKMCH, who was examining a patient’s chart when Khushi died, said, “I have seen so many children die.”

Khushi’s journey to the hospital

There was no chart for Khushi, who had died within two hours of being admitted at the overcrowded SKMCH on Friday.

From the time that they had first seen her convulsing at five in the morning, it had taken her desperately poor parents five hours to get her to the hospital from Kankatti, the village where they were living temporarily while working on a construction job.

Her father Amarnath Manjhi, a labourer, rushed her to someone he described as a “private doctor”, who gave her an injection. This, however, did not help her.

For the next hour, the 25-year-old went scrounging for the Rs 100 that he would have to pay for transporting her in a shared “tempo” over 60 kilometres. He eventually borrowed it from his maalik, the contractor who hired him for the construction job.

To get a tempo, Amarnath had to cycle four kilometres to the main road, with his wife sitting behind him, holding their convulsing daughter in her arms. 

She was playing last night. The seizures started in the morning, and now she is gone. She is gone in a few hours.Sunita Devi

After the first tempo dropped them off at a place called the “zero mile” point, six kilometres from SKMCH, it took another shared tempo, five rupees and 20 minutes before they reached the hospital.

Why didn’t Manjhi dial 102 to call an ambulance to Kankatti village?

Why didn’t he rush his daughter to the closest Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC), located in each block of the Muzaffarpur district, instead of undertaking a three-hour long journey?

To both these questions, Manjhi had one answer, “I did not know.”

PHCs, set up in each block of a district, are meant to be the first port of call for those living in the hinterlands to seek medical treatment.

Since 2015, two decades after the first major AES outbreak in Bihar, PHCs have been fitted with air-conditioned AES wards, with oxygen cylinders, a ready supply of medicines and two beds.

They do next to nothing to prepare communities for AES, but because of the election this year, they actually did nothingTamanna Hashmi, a social activist from Muzaffarpur

Visiting the closest PHC to “stabilise’ AES-hit children can save lives, but people rarely go, preferring the tertiary facility in the big city.

HuffPost India visited three PHCs — in Motipur, Mushahari and Kanti — which had all the facilities, but no patients.

It doesn’t help that over the years, PHCs have garnered a reputation for being a waste of space, lacking both manpower and resources.  

That’s the thought that stopped Khushi’s father from taking her there.

“We thought that the hospital in Muzaffarpur is a big one and it would be best to take her there,” he said.

Walking out of the hospital  

Brijesh Kumar, a young man in a black T-shirt, who maintains the logbook at the SKHMC, looked tired as he scrolled up and down the figures on the computer.

“Today, it is too many. Tomorrow, if there is no rain, it will be more,” he said matter-of-factly.

There are presently two children, sometimes three, lying on the beds meant for AES-hit children at SKMCH. The hospital needs every spare bed to cope with the incoming patients.

Two attendants waited for a minute before urging Khushi’s mother to step aside so that they could remove her body.  

AES is endemic here, but right now it is an epidemic. We were not prepared.”J.P. Mandal, a doctor at SKMCH

When she refused to let go of her daughter, Khushi’s father stepped in, moving her aside gently. He wrapped his daughter in a white sheet and lay her on a stretcher.

As they wheeled the stretcher down two floors, Khushi’s mother walked behind the attendants, her wails echoing through the hospital corridors.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stood near the hospital entrance, waiting in the searing heat for the ambulance which would transport her daughter’s body to their own village, Raja Pakkar, around 60km from Muzaffarpur city.

Hovering protectively around the stretcher, she covered her daughter’s face with a loose end of the white sheet in which she was wrapped. Twenty minutes later, as she bundled up her daughter in her arms and tried to clamber into the ambulance, she was surrounded by journalists.

As cameramen poked their cameras inside the ambulance to get a close-up shot of Khushi’s body, reporters asked her parents, “Did your daughter die from AES? Where are you from? When did she get sick? When did you get here?”

The couple looked stunned and mumbled a few replies, barely audible.

Sanjay Kumar, the ambulance van driver, cursed the journalists.

“This is crazy. We have to go very far and I have to come back quickly. There will be more dead children when I get back,” he said.  

What’s the government doing?

On Friday, the medical superintendent of SKMCH, Sunil Kumar Shahi, fielded calls from senior official in Bihar and Delhi.

“It’s been three since the morning, sir,” he said on the phone.

Turning to the journalists who were sitting around his desk, he said, “The situation is changing minute to minute.”

If the heatwave persists, Shahi fears the death in 2019 is likely to cross 2014.

Last week, as news of the AES deaths was breaking, officials in the Bihar government said it was not AES, but hypoglycaemia — a condition by low blood sugar — that was killing children.

There will be more dead children when I get back.Sanjay Kumar, the ambulance van driver

On 12 June, the Health Department’s Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar said that 80% of the deaths were caused by hypoglycaemia.

Shahi, however, made it clear that low blood sugar was just “one finding” in children suffering from AES.

“These are AES cases. There could be many causes and many symptoms, but these are all in the AES group,” he said.

People are rapidly losing patience with the Nitish Kumar government’s inability to deal with the crisis, which has erupted year after year. On Tuesday, the chief minister was met by protests by angry relatives when he visited Muzaffarpur. Bihar health minister Mangal Pandey has also been the target of much criticism after a video surfaced in which he was seen asking the score for the India-Pakistan cricket match during a state health department meeting on the crisis.

HuffPost India also found that overworked government doctors and nurses are struggling to accommodate VIP visitors such as Pandey, whose presence demands that a full-kitted out ambulance accompany their entourage at all times, even when convoy protocol does not allow for it.

On Sunday, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan, part of the JD(U)’s ally BJP, visited Muzaffarpur and promised to build a 100-bed paediatric ward to fight AES, but as the empty beds in many hospitals prove, what Bihar needs right now are trained doctors more than empty hospital buildings.

The government is now looking for band-aid solutions to tape over the endemic issue. The Bihar government has issued an advisory against eating litchis on an empty stomach, saying that the chemical — methylene cyclopropyl-glycine (MCPG) — affects the brain when sugar levels are low.

On whether the present outbreak could be blamed on litchi consumption, Shahi asked, “Is this the first year that Bihar is growing litchis? Is this first year that children are eating litchis? Have they not eaten litchis before?”

A Muzaffarpur-based paediatrician, who has been following AES for more than 20 years, told Down To Earth, that it was absurd to blame litchis, and that the fruit was only a triggering factor for malnutritioned children.

Taking Khushi home

Khushi, her parents said, did not eat litchis, but she did sleep on an empty stomach on Thursday night.

Staring out of the window of the ambulance which was transporting his daughter back to their village, Manjhi said, “There was dal and roti, but she was playing all day and then she fell asleep.”

His eyes red and swollen, Manjhi said, “She was always playing. She was a cheerful girl. Why did she die so young?”

Hearing his words, Sunita, who had been patting the sheet that covered her daughter’s body, began to cry.

Is this the first year that Bihar is growing litchis? Is this first year that children are eating litchis?Sunil Kumar Shahi

Sanjay Kumar, the ambulance driver, said, “Don’t cry, don’t cry.... I’m hearing so many parents crying these days. It is too much.”

Ignoring his pleas for silence, Sunita cried harder, holding her daughter’s body steady as the ambulance jolted over the potholes on the road leading to Raja Pakkar village.

As she carried her daughter to her thatched hut, Sunita was joined by other women from the village. As the circle of onlookers — mostly children — grew, the women wailed together.

Standing at a distance, Manjhi replied to Sanjay’s questions — name of the deceased, father’s name, mother’s name — which the ambulance driver wrote down in a register.

Turning to this reporter, Manjhi, who has two more children, said, “I will go back to work tomorrow. We have no money.”  

Donald Trump Accidentally Attacked An Australian Broadcaster. It Had The Cutest Clapback.

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Australia’s national broadcaster had the cutest comeback for Donald Trump after the president mistakenly tagged it in an attack on Twitter.

Trump on Monday poured cold water on the report that he’d spent 30 hours being interviewed by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for the special edition of “20/20” titled “President Trump ― 30 Hours” that aired Sunday.

But he tagged the wrong ABC in his tweet and inadvertently directed his ire toward the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

Australia’s ABC took the case of mistaken identity well and replied with this GIF:

Its response went viral and wags online described it as “Gold!” and “koala-tee.”

Meghan Markle Talks About The Joy Of Adopting Animals In Sweet Letter

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Meghan Markle may be on maternity leave, but she still has time to support a patronage that’s near and dear to her heart. 

The Duchess of Sussex wrote a sweet foreword in support of Mayhew, an international animal welfare charity, for the organization’s 2018 annual review. The former “Suits” actress spoke about the “joy” of rescuing an animal. 

“As a proud rescue dog owner, I know from personal experience the joy that adopting an animal into your home can bring,” the Duchess said, before talking about the patronage. 

“The role that we, as people, play in rehoming and rescuing these animals is vital, but the role of organisations such as Mayhew is unparalleled.” 

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex meets a Jack Russell dog named

She encouraged people to get involved with animals and Mayhew in any form, whether its adopting an animal or volunteering one’s time. 

“The choice to adopt a pet is a big decision that comes with much responsibility but infinite return on investment,” she added. “It will undoubtedly change your life.”

Meghan previously adopted two rescue dogs, a beagle named Guy and a labrador-shepherd Bogart, in Toronto. Only Guy made it across the pond when the duchess moved to London, while Bogart stayed behind with some of her friends. 

Meghan adopted Guy at a joint event between a Pet Valu store in Milton, Ontario, and the rescue group A Dog’s Dream Rescue in 2015. 

Alison Preiss, marketing manager at Pet Valu, told HuffPost Canada about the adoption in a 2018 interview. 

“She was really well prepared,” Preiss said and explained that the actress even made an impression on A Dog’s Dream Rescue founder Dolores Doherty. 

“Meghan got in touch with [Doherty] through Petfinder and Dolores said, ‘Here’s an application,’ and Meghan had hers back within 10 minutes,” Preiss said, adding that the actress had an impact on her as well. 

“She was just so normal, very intelligent, outgoing, confident-type woman,” Doherty told HuffPost. “She wasn’t pushy or flouting anything at all ... she was just really a nice person, and I thought, ‘Well, I was really happy that Guy would have such a good home with her,’” she added.

Meghan and Prince Harry now share Guy, as well as another rescue dog they got together (whose name hasn’t been made public). 

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Amazon Slams Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 'Starvation Wages' Accusation As 'Absurd'

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After Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) accused Amazon of paying its employees “starvation wages” while its CEO Jeff Bezos enjoys the billionaire life, the tech giant pushed back, calling the congresswoman’s remarks “absurd” and “just wrong.”

Speaking with ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez suggested Amazon was not fairly compensating its employees while Bezos, who has a net worth of roughly $118 billion, continues to fatten his coffers.

The freshman congresswoman clarified that she doesn’t care if Bezos is a billionaire as long as Amazon pays its workers a “living wage” and provides them with adequate benefits. But, she said, if Bezos’ wealth is “predicated on paying people starvation wages and stripping them of the ability to access health care,” then that’s a major problem.

Amazon hit back on Monday, saying in a tweet that it was “a leader on pay at $15 min wage + full benefits from day one.”

Jay Carney, Amazon’s senior vice president of global corporate affairs, accused Ocasio-Cortez of “making stuff up about Amazon.” The company told CNN in a statement that the congresswoman’s allegations were “absurd.”

But Ocasio-Cortez, a frequent critic of Amazon, had a rebuttal of her own.

She took issue with the company’s use of the term “from day one,” sharing a link on Twitter on Monday night to a Daily Beast story from September about Amazon employees living “paycheck to paycheck” and some relying on public assistance programs to make ends meet.

“If a person is working 40h/week & is paid so little that they need gov help to make ends meet, it’s not the person that’s a weight on our system ― it’s the company,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour last year after facing public pressure to do so. The company said at the time that its public policy team would also begin lobbying for an increase in the federal minimum wage.

“We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead,” Bezos said in a statement of the wage increase. “We’re excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us.”

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