“I Slacked you” may still be a confusing phrase to some — but not for long, if Slack has anything to say about it. The fast-growing company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week with the ambition that its corporate chat platform will enter even more offices and lexicons. 

The jury is out on whether Slack, reportedly use by 10 million-plus people, is a good thing for productivity and communication. With its instant messaging convenience, Slack is designed to keep your attention within its confines, which sometimes comes at the expense of actually getting any work done. You can share a Google Doc in it, sync your calendars and connect emails through it. But when Slack becomes the primary form of workplace communication, Slack output can become the metric of hustle and diligence. 

“Its greatest strength: amazing ease-of-use, is also its weakness: making it far too easy for everyone to default to using Slack for communicating,” wrote software programmer Andrea Liu in a critique of Slack on Medium. She added: “Big or small, everything coming in through Slack shares the same compact shape, and worse, the same level of urgency.“

When I hear the Slack ping that announces a new message, I feel a Pavlovian pull to read it, right then, right away. There’s a red circle noting the number of new messages that nudges me to drop whatever I’m doing and click. That’s surely by design. Tristan Harris, a former Google employee turned industry critic, notes that red is a known trigger color. 

These psychological pulls are not great for my productivity and peace of mind, but for me, that’s not the worst thing about Slack. What’s become clear from my years of using Slack at work is that it is, first and foremost, a tool of corporate surveillance. Slack stands for “Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge,” after all. Its positive use depends on how much you trust your employer not to read your messages, because yes, they have complete access. 

And in offices where the assumption of positive intent has eroded and colleagues whisper furtively in the halls, that trust probably doesn’t extend very far. That is bad for morale and bad for the fundamental need for basic mutual respect and trust between employees and employers for any collaborative good to get done.

When you can send GIFs to your co-workers in a direct message, it can feel like a private chatroom for you to gossip and let off steam, but Slack ultimately belongs to your boss. The app is an extension of your boss’ technology. If you were using your boss’ laptop all day, would you trust them not to look at what you’re saying about them? It’s their computer, after all.  

Here’s how to tell who can read your private DMs.

To find out who can read your direct messages, go to yourteamname.slack.com/account/team. From there, you can toggle to “Retention & Exports” to see your company’s data retention plan. If you switch to “Admins & Owners,” you can see the list of employees with designated access.

Both admins and owners can easily download public messages, deletion logs, archived public channels and links to files included in any public channel through what’s called a standard export. Only workplace owners, however, can apply to see private channels and direct messages “as needed and permitted by law” through a corporate export. They first have to apply to use this export tool, but once approved by Slack, they can schedule exports to see all private messages.

According to Slack, applications can be made related to workplace harassment investigations, compliance with archival requirements, lawsuits requiring disclosure and more.

It’s too easy to watch each other on Slack. 

The publicly available knowledge Slack offers can also turn us all into snoops since employees can easily surveil each other. I was once in a turbulent office where colleagues disappeared from one day to the next; they were fired or laid off without formal notice. In the vacuum of official information, Slack became the definitive source on who had left or been fired.

There, like the funeral cannon in “The Hunger Games” that announced the identities of the fallen each night, we could tell who was fired by seeing if their Slack account was deactivated. The app provided a grim yet satisfying answer to our continuous questions of whether so-and-so was on vacation or actually gone for good.

At the time, seeing my colleagues’ deactivated status felt like an act of sousveillance, a way to turn the camera back and seize some sense of control in a situation of mass firings. But looking back, the ease with which I was able to look up my co-workers’ private job information through a public Slack detail contributed to my unease at the office. Turning the lens back on my co-workers reminded me of how quickly it could one day be my turn. I always felt like someone was watching and filing a report on me, probably because they easily could. 

On Slack, you can also see who Slacks the most on your team by seeing who is the most active user. Click the arrow by your Slack organization’s name, then head to “Analytics.” From there, you can click “Members” and sort the messages posted to see who among you is Slacking the most. 

One way to personally limit the public data other Slack users can see is to schedule your DMs to be deleted. To do this, click the gear icon in a direct message conversation, then click “Edit message retention.” From there, you can set Slack to delete messages and revisions after a set number of days. 

But that’s just one small answer to the larger question of how much you should share of yourself on Slack. I use Slack regularly because my colleagues use it to communicate and I do not want to deviate outside the norm. And I laugh at the GIFs. I love following entertaining threads that do not directly include me. Like many workers who sometimes work from home or in remote locations, I am a social animal who needs some immediate way to connect with co-workers so I feel less alone at work.

But I won’t be sad when a new technology that privileges an employee’s privacy over their boss’ ability to surveil them comes along and I can leave Slack for good.

In the meantime, my advice remains that when you need to discuss sensitive information with a colleague, don’t Slack it — say, “Let’s take this offline.”

Though the Jordyn Woods and Tristan Thompson cheating allegations played out months ago on social media and in the news, the storyline just came to a head on Sunday’s episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” 

Khloe Kardashian tried to make sense of the scandal ― and who to believe ― after Woods continued to change her story and Thompson, the father of Kardashian’s child, True, simply confessed and said he did hook up with Woods.

While Woods first said that she was a “watchdog” at the party with the NBA player, she later admitted that she “made out” with Thompson and was “so confused.” 

“Now she’s like, ‘It wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t intimate. It wasn’t sexual,’” Kardashian said on the E! episode. 

“Now she’s downplaying it,” Kardashian added, before explaining what the real problem was with the situation.

“I’m not saying things can’t happen. I’m the most understanding, calm person ever. But Jordyn … never once has Jordyn said, ‘I’m sorry,’” she said. 

Earlier this week, viewers finally learned what Kylie Jenner said to her then-best friend as the scandal unfolded. 

“I called [Woods] and she didn’t really say anything. She was just like, you know, crying the whole time,” Jenner explained. “And I was just telling her, ‘I’m like scared of you now. Like, you’re capable of waking up the next morning with a smile on your face.’” 

But the biggest problem Jenner said she had with Woods was that she didn’t believe Woods was thinking about the Kardashian-Jenner family.

“I pretty much told her exactly what we’ve been talking about. Like, ‘You weren’t thinking about True, not Khloé, not me,’” the beauty mogul said. 

She added that Woods “Could do whatever, but when it affects my family, me, then that’s when it’s a problem.” 

Beyoncé fans will be feeling the love at this news: Nala, her character in “The Lion King,” will have a larger role in the live-action film than she did in the 1994 animated version.

“In the original film, [Nala’s] role is not as large as in the stage production, and we definitely drew inspiration, and that was one of the areas where we were going to expand this,” “Lion King” director Jon Favreau told Fandango.com. 

“There’s an opportunity to build upon especially the female characters of Sarabi played by Alfre Woodard and Nala played by Beyoncé that the stage play explores further,” Favreau said. “It has a lot more time to do so than the original film. That was an area that we could build upon the original.”

The new film also takes advantage of Beyoncé’s pipes by having her sing a new song written especially for the film that she wrote with [music producer] Lebo M. and composer Hans Zimmer.

“They were all collaborating with her and helping to bring this new piece of music into a film where there’s already a very established musical personality to the piece,” Favreau said. “So it was nice of them to have them working with her to allow the new song to feel organically a part of the new production.”

Although Favreau said Beyoncé was “incredibly engaged and committed” in the production, he admits the main benefit of working with her came when he was home with his family.

“I was pretty stoked because I knew my stock was going to rise in my home,” he laughed.

“The Lion King” debuts in theaters July 19.

When dating, many people notice they tend to be attracted to the same “type.” There are physical types, sure ― tall, dark and bearded, for instance ― but also personality types. Maybe you’re drawn to the quiet, mysterious type. Or the vivacious, extroverted type that somehow manages to get you out on a Friday night.

For Lindsey Oliver, a design specialist from Durham, North Carolina, it’s a rare occasion when she strays from her type. She’s almost exclusively drawn to passionate and oftentimes emotionally volatile women.

“I’ve had multiple instances where my friends have warned me that someone I have a crush on may not be particularly emotionally stable,” she told HuffPost. “In retrospect, I feel like I’ve ignored every red flag because I’m hopelessly optimistic about them.”

That tendency to fall for the same kind of person time and time again (even if they’re not the healthiest match) isn’t just common; it’s now recognized by scientists. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that most of us really do have a “type” when it comes to the personalities of our romantic partners. The researchers examined interviews with the current and former partners of hundreds of people to reach this conclusion.

Why talk to people’s exes instead of asking them directly? Previous research on the topic actually did rely on self-reported data about past relationships, but that’s a slightly problematic approach, said Yoobin Park, a lead researcher of the new study and a Ph.D. student in the department of psychology at the University of Toronto. 

If a person has any lingering negative feelings toward an ex, they’re probably not going to give a fair assessment of that person’s personality. 

“If you ask people to self-report, they may exaggerate the negative aspects of their ex-partners (e.g., ‘they were really clumsy’), and we may end up finding similarity between the exes just because of the participant’s tendency to describe them negatively,” she explained.

To skirt the issue, Park and her co-author Geoff MacDonald looked at the German Family Panel study, a multi-year ongoing survey of German adults across several age groups. The survey includes interviews with both primary survey participants and their current and former flames. If a primary participant breaks up and finds another partner, the new S.O. gets interviewed and that data is added to the participant’s file. 

The 332 primary participants (along with their respective exes and current partners) were asked to describe their levels of what’s known by psychologists as “the big five” personality traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. (On a scale of 1 to 5, participants were asked how much they agreed with a series of statements such as, “I am usually modest and reserved,” “I am interested in many different kinds of things” and “I make plans and carry them out.”)

Analyzing the collected data, Park and MacDonald found that, overall, the primary participants’ current partners described themselves very similarly to their past partners. (And their responses reflected something more than the participant’s tendency to date someone similar to themselves, Park said.)

“It’s interesting because we often see people who, following a breakup, think that they have a better idea about who they want or need as a partner,” Park said. “Sometimes they’re looking for a person that’s not necessarily the same type of person as their ex.” 

The results from this study, though, suggest there’s consistency in our partners’ personalities.

The partner association was weaker, though still present, for people who scored high on extroversion and openness to new experience. (Apparently, variety is the spice of life for these folks, even when it comes to partners.)

If you’ve had a string of toxic exes, you might be rolling your eyes right now. But having a “type” isn’t inherently good or bad, Park said. Yes, similarities in partners might make you feel hopeless or frustrated when you encounter the same problems and challenges with a new partner. (“I knew this was going to happen,” you might think. “Same issues, different person.”)

But it’s potentially a positive if you can put the lessons and communication strategies you learned in your past relationships to use with your new S.O. (Think of it this way: Same issues, different person, smarter response.)

“Using that knowledge can improve your relationship quality,” Park said. “Plus, the sense of familiarity can also facilitate the couple’s bonding.”

If your “type” really has been problematic in the past ― or you have a long history of breakups ― don’t freak out about these findings. Instead, tinker and adjust your “type” and look for someone who fits your criteria while also possessing healthier traits and habits. That’s what Oliver, the aforementioned design pro who’s attracted to passionate women, has learned to do.

“I recognized that I am interested in women who are deeply passionate, but it took these failed experiences to realize that someone can have deep emotions and express complex feelings without being toxic and draining to me,” she said. “So now I’m trying to simultaneously embrace and buck my ‘type,’ just by reframing it a little.”

Sounds like a smart strategy. 

SERAIKELA-KHARSAWAN, Jharkhand — Eleven people were arrested on Monday in connection with the death of a 24-year-old man, who was thrashed by a mob here for alleged theft and is seen in a purported video being forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”, police said.

A special investigation team (SIT) has been set up to look into the death of Tabrez Ansari, who was declared “brought dead” by doctors at the Tata Main Hospital in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, on Saturday, the police said.

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Two police personnel were suspended in connection with the incident. They were officers-in-charge of Kharaswan and Sini police stations, they said.

Seraikela-Kharsawan Superintendent of Police Karthik S said on 17 June, Ansari and two others had entered a house in Seraikela village in the night, allegedly with an intention to commit theft.

However, the occupants of the house woke up and raised an alarm, following which villagers caught hold of Ansari and “manhandled” him, while his accomplices managed to flee, the SP told reporters.

Ansari was found to be in possession of valuables, which he and his associates had allegedly stolen from other villages, the officer said.

The police reached the spot in the morning and took Ansari to jail on the basis of a complaint from villagers, after administering first aid to him.

However, when his condition deteriorated in jail on the same day, he was taken to the a hospital, where he was diagnosed with multiple injuries, the SP said. He was subsequently referred to the Tata Main Hospital in Jamshedpur.

Earlier, the police had said Ansari was tied to a pole and beaten up with sticks through the night.

The video in question, circulated widely on social media, was shared with the police by Ansari’s family members and it was being investigated, the SP said.

“We are looking into all angles. His family members mentioned some unidentified miscreants in their complaint. Based on that, we have already arrested eleven people, including a man named Papu Mandal,” he added.

He said the situation was normal, yet a police posse had been deployed in the village. The SP said the post-mortem report had not been received yet.

Ansari’s wife, Shaista Praveen, has accused the police of taking him to jail first, instead of a hospital.

The opposition Congress said it had formed a seven-member team to probe the incident. “We demand Rs 25 lakh compensation for the family of the victim and a job for his wife,” a state Congress leader said.

The incident has triggered angry reactions from various political parties across the country.

Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti said Ansari was lynched to death in BJP-ruled Jharkhand. 

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi said such incidents now followed a familiar pattern.

The incident also found mention in the Rajya Sabha, when senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said Jharkhand had become a “lynching factory”.

“Dalits and Muslims are being killed there every week. Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi, we are with you in the fight of ‘sabka saath sabka vikas’, but it should be there for people to see it. We cannot see it anywhere,” he said. 

Dr. Phil just couldn’t help himself.

Over the weekend, Sophie Turner posted a sweet photo of her and husband Joe Jonas being all kinds of cute in front of the Eiffel Tower.

And when Phil McGraw, the host of the talk show “Dr. Phil,” saw the photo, he just had to leave a humble brag as a comment.

“1 week to go!” he wrote, adding: “See you at the wedding!”

Unfortunately, his need to inform the world that he’s attending the famous couple’s wedding also spilled the tea on the ceremony’s secret date.

Although Turner and Jonas tied the knot in May during an impromptu wedding in Las Vegas, it was done on a whim, and many of the couple’s loved ones were not present.

Jonas actually admitted during an interview with SiriusXM earlier this month that his parents learned about the Vegas wedding online.

“In my mind, [the Vegas wedding] was the legal portion of the marriage,” he said when asked why his parents weren’t there or why they weren’t given a heads up about the surprise wedding. “So, I was thinking, this is not the most important day, there’s an important day — that I’ll keep private — ahead of us.”

This “important day” is most likely the couple’s more formal ceremony that they’ve been planning for quite a while — and have been pretty tight-lipped about.

And for those who are wondering why Dr. Phil will be in attendance at the Jophie nuptials, the TV personality, who is not an actual doctor, did seem to bond with Turner when she visited McGraw’s podcast “Phil in the Blanks” in April to discuss her experiences with mental health.

“I’m really excited to be here,” the “Game of Thrones” actress gushed on the podcast. “Because I’m a huge fan of your show.”

We’re just wondering how big of a fan she is now.

Halsey wasn’t afraid to bare her body hair for the new cover of Rolling Stone’s “Hot Issue,” revealing unshaved armpits in a photo she shared last week.

The “Bad at Love” singer earned praise from celebrities like Demi Lovato and Zara Larsson, who applauded her ― and the magazine ― for not digitally editing her body hair out of the picture. 

“There so much yes about this picture idk where to start,” Lovato commented on Instagram. Larrson tweeted about the cover, calling it “stunning.”

“I loooove the fact that they didn’t edit the armpits like most magazines would do. Women are not little babies who don’t have body hair,” she wrote on Twitter. 

Many fans also commended the singer for the realness she served on the cover: 

Last year, the singer’s hair again made headlines after she slammed critics for coming after her natural hair.

Halsey, who is biracial, faced criticism after she posted a photo of her hair with the caption “new growth, new growth; all these fades I outgrew.” While some people didn’t like her look, the “Bad at Love” star wasn’t having it. 

“I can’t believe I spent a whole damn year growing out my curls under those wigs for y’all to say my natural hair looks like a wig,” she wrote. “Some fucked up shit lmao.” 

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman says the new US sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader and other top officials mean the “permanent closure” of diplomacy between Tehran and Washington.

That’s according to a report carried by the state-run IRNA news agency on Tuesday, quoting the spokesman, Abbas Mousavi.

Mousavi says the “fruitless sanction on Iran’s leadership and the chief of Iranian diplomacy mean the permanent closure of the road of diplomacy with the frustrated US administration.”

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Trump enacted new sanctions Monday targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. US officials also say they plan sanctions against Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

This comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the US over its unraveling nuclear deal and as Iran last week shot down a US military surveillance drone.

BADAUN — Oblivious of the hassle that it may be causing to citizens, the Badaun Police in Uttar Pradesh has been subjecting people to random security checks at gun points with both their arms held up in air in hands-up position.

In defence of this drastic method of security checks being resorted to by the police, district’s Senior Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar Tripathi Monday asserted that it was a precautionary method to avert any attack on policemen on duty. 

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A video and some photographs of the policemen frisking people and checking their vehicles at police barricades on roads with one policeman pointing gun at them, forcing them to stand motionless in hands-up position has gone viral on various social media platforms in the area.

In one photograph, Bagrain police post in-charge Rahul Kumar Sisodia under the Wazirganj police station could be seen pointing a pistol at passers-by with other policemen frisking them.

Cops holding a gun at passers-by could also be seen in the video, which went viral.

When contacted, SSP Tripathi said, “Criminals generally move with firearms and there have been several instances of attack on policemen during security checks.”

“Hence, this has been done as a precautionary measure. When two cops are conducting checks, one cop is in an alert mode, so that no untoward incident takes place, the SSP added.

“This is being done from the security point of view,” he said.

Ever since Apple launched the Airpods, several other companies have been getting onto the “true wireless” boat. While wireless headphones — where there’s a wire connecting the two earpieces — have been around for ages, true wireless earphones are still a new development, although the rapid adoption of Airpods may make that hard to believe.

But with multiple brands out there now, what do you need to keep in mind when choosing what to buy? Although buying these devices is pretty similar to buying other earphones, there are a couple of additional factors that you need to keep in mind.

These six points are things you should consider when you’re looking to buy true wireless earphones such as Airpods, or those from other brands like Bose, Jabra, Samsung, and others.

1. Design

Since this is a new category, there are a number of different designs available right now, which doesn’t just impact the look, but also how these earbuds fit in your ears. The iconic Airpods look a lot like the normal Apple headphones — EarPods — just sans wires.

Wireless earbuds from the likes of Bose, Sennheiser, Sony and Samsung look like bullet points or dots. Then there are the more affordable truly wireless earphones from Skullcandy, Toreto, Stuffcool and Boat that come in funky shapes and sizes.

Some, like AirPods, take a one-size fits all approach, while others come with replaceable tips for a better fit; or with wings to sit more securely in your ear, or a hinge to hook them around the ear.

When you’re looking at the design, aside from aesthetics, you need to consider the comfort, fit (a close fit blocks out outside noises) and also if you’ll be wearing them to the gym, are they waterproof?

2. Stability

While stability is one of the considerations we need to keep in mind when looking at design, with a fully wireless earbud, it’s important enough to be considered as a fresh point. That’s because if one of these falls out of your ear, it won’t just dangle at the end of a cord, it could potentially be lost forever.

All these earbuds tend to fall out, no matter how stable they are. Some will fall out more easily than others, but each of them will fall out at some point in time. So make sure you try out the earbuds before you buy them, and ensure that they are at least steady enough for day to day use in your ears, because one-size does not fit all, and if you lose even one of the buds, the experience goes for a toss.

3. Connectivity

You need to check how easy it is to pair the earphones with your phones, and also, how easy it is to switch them on and off. Here too, not all earbuds are born equal—with some, you need to do a long press, or a double tap, on tiny buttons, but others like AirPods will reconnect as soon as you bring them close to your phone.

Some buds also need to stay connected not just to your phone but also each other, in which case you need to turn them on one at a time. The bigger brands have done a generally good job in this regard, but if you’re buying a pair of true wireless earphones, make sure that they have a simple and reliable process to connect to your phone.

4. Carry case

When it comes to most earphones and headphones, the case in which they are carried isn’t very important. But when it comes to truly wireless earbuds, their carrying case if often crucial to the buds’ existence. This is because most carry cases of true wireless earphones are not only the home to the buds when not in use, but also double up as their charger.

That’s not true for some low-end ones, but in that situation too, it might be a good idea to invest in one simply so you don’t risk misplacing them. If the earphones come with a case, you should also look at the size and weight of the case, to see if the total experience is actually as portable and convenient as the earphones promised.

5. Battery and charging

Truly wireless earphones may look and feel all hep and trendy but that small form factor means that the batteries inside them are smaller, eating away crucial audio hours. Most of these buds can last up to 3-5 hours on a single charge. Anything below it is pretty much unacceptable and anything above that is a bonus.

Then comes the charging process. Most wireless earphones may be without any wires when it comes to the buds and but they still get charged through wired chargers, which as we pointed out earlier, are often through their cases (Apple’s second generation AirPods are one of the few that actually come with a wireless charging case, if you are willing to pay extra).

The battery life provided by these cases can vary from model to model. It is generally given in terms of the number of times the case can recharge the earbuds - which can be from a couple of recharges to half a dozen of them. They also tend to charge at different speeds - Apple’s case for instance, claims to deliver three hours of listening time when you place the AirPods in them for just fifteen minutes.

6. Ease of use

They might have a few connectivity blues and their battery life might not always be there greatest, but what can be really really (really) annoying in most true wireless earphones are the controls, be it for charging column, skipping tracks or making and rejecting calls. Most earbuds come with teeny-tiny buttons that are almost impossible to press and operate and the placement of these buttons generally is another problem.

The buds themselves are so small that finding buttons on them becomes a headache in itself. Some buds have tried to address this by adding touch and tap control options instead of buttons, like the AirPods and the Bragi Dash Pro, but even those can be slightly complicated simply because there are times when you do not know whether your touch has registered or not - a double tap might be mistaken for a single one, a swipe for a tap and so on. The control systems are not quite perfect yet, so try out a few different ones to see what works for you.

LONDON — Australia coach Justin Langer on Monday heaped praise on Jos Buttler, terming the swashbuckling England batsman as the new Mahendra Singh Dhoni of world cricket.

Wicketkeeper batsman Buttler has excelled for England with his aggressive style of batting and Langer believes he can succeed former India skipper Dhoni, who is considered as one of the best finishers in international cricket.

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“Jos is an unbelievable player. I love watching him bat. He is the new Dhoni of world cricket,” said Langer.

“I hope he gets a duck in this (Tuesday’s) game obviously, but I saw him at Somerset and he is an unbelievable athlete and an incredible finisher,” the Australian coach added on the eve of their World Cup match against England.

Buttler has scored 3728 runs at an average of 41.42 and a strike-rate of 120.25 in 137 matches.

With wedding pictures from friends, family, colleagues and celebrities flooding our social media feeds at all times, it takes a truly remarkable wedding photo to capture our attention these days. The award-winning images below do just that. 

Fearless Photographers, a website dedicated to showcasing the very best wedding photography, released its most recent collection of images on Wednesday. Photographers from around the world submitted roughly 10,000 images for consideration, but only 137 made the final cut. 

Below, we’ve highlighted some of our favorite shots from the collection. To see the rest, head over to the Fearless Photographers website. 

NEW DELHI — Hitting out at the BJP, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said while Tuesday was the anniversary of the Emergency imposed in 1975, the country is going through “super emergency” for the past five years.

Emergency was imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on this day in 1975 which was in effect till 21 March, 1977.

“Today is the anniversary of the Emergency declared in 1975. For the last five years, the country went through a ‘Super Emergency’. We must learn our lessons from history and fight to safeguard the democratic institutions in the country,” Banerjee tweeted.

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NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a plea by the Gujarat Congress challenging the Election Commission’s decision to hold separate bypolls to two Rajya Sabha seats in the state.

A vacation bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice BR Gavai, however, granted liberty to the Gujarat Congress to file ‘election petition’ after conclusion of polls to the two Rajya Sabha seats vacated by Union Ministers Amit Shah and Smriti Irani.

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An election petition is a procedure to call into question the election results of parliamentary, Assembly or local elections.

The two Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant after Shah and Irani got elected to the Lok Sabha from Gujarat’s Gandhinagar and Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, respectively.

The plea was filed by Congress MLA and Leader of Opposition in Gujarat Assembly Pareshbhai Dhanani.

British taxpayers have picked up a £2.4m bill for the renovation of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s new home.

Frogmore Cottage, which was previously five separate residences, has been turned into a single home for the newlywed couple.

“The works started on-site in November 2018 and were substantially completed by the end of March 2019,” the latest Sovereign Grant accounts said.

Anti-monarchy campaign group Republic said it was calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the spending.

Republic claimed the £2.4m tab could have paid for a mental health hub being built to support veteran Royal Marines in Lympstone, Devon.

Yet the sum was less than that spent on the refurbishment of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s home, Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace, west London, in 2013.

Extensive renovations there cost taxpayers £3.4m, in part, it was said, due to the need to remove asbestos and protect the historic building.

Meanwhile, the latest accounts show Harry’s father, the Prince of Wales, was landed with a £5m bill in the year Harry and Meghan married and as the Duchess of Cambridge officially joined the royal family.

Charles pays for the public duties of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Harry and Meghan, and some of their private costs, out of his multimillion pound Duchy of Cornwall income.

Royal accounts showed that the prince’s bill for the Sussexes’ and the Cambridges’ activities, plus other expenditure including Charles’s capital expenditure and transfer to reserves, was £5.05m in 2018-2019, up 1.8% or £89,000 from £4.96m in 2017-2018.

Over two years, the figure has risen more than £1.5m from £3.5m in 2016-2017.

In the year Harry and Meghan married, Charles’s non-official expenditure increased by £155,000, up 5.2% to £3.16m.

In a statement Republic said: “The dishonest spin about what this costs each taxpayer has to stop. We now need a full inquiry into this blatant misuse of public money.

“If even one school or hospital is facing cuts we cannot justify spending a penny on the royals. Yet with all public services under intense financial pressure we throw £2.4m at a new house for Harry. This is corruption being hidden in plain sight.”

Clarence House’s annual report provides no detailed breakdown of the funding for the activities of the Sussexes and the Cambridges, with royal sources saying the details were private.

The prince contributed to the Sussexes’ wedding and hosted Harry and Meghan’s evening wedding reception at Frogmore House, where the newlyweds enjoyed a spectacular firework display and partied until 3am with celebrity guests. 

A royal source said: “Their expenditure is met by help from their father or things that they would pay for themselves from their private expenditure.”

A video released as part of the yearly review featured footage of Meghan walking down the aisle at St George’s Chapel and being met by a beaming Harry.

The source added that having the Cambridges and Sussexes among the working royals supporting the Queen was “a great opportunity for the whole family” .

They added: “I wouldn’t say it was placing additional financial burdens.

“Everything is well within budget and works incredibly harmoniously.”

As heir to the throne, Charles is entitled to the surplus generated by the Duchy of Cornwall’s vast portfolio of lands, buildings and financial investments – which includes the Oval cricket ground and 67,000 acres of Dartmoor.

The prince’s annual private income from the hereditary estate fell slightly by £103,000 to £21.63 million in the year 2018/2019.

The private landed estate was created in 1337 by Edward III to support his son and heir Prince Edward, known as the Black Prince, and all his subsequent heirs.

Official costs of the Prince of Wales’s London office and official residence Clarence House jumped by 252%, rising £478,000 from £190,000 to £668,000.

The bill, met by taxpayers through the Sovereign Grant, covered work on the roof, the portico and the perimeter wall.

A royal source said: “The point is that there is this great building which is an old building and a venerable building and from time to time it needs a bit of maintenance, so we’ve had to do works this year on the roof, the portico and some work to shore up the perimeter wall.”

Charles’s tax bill decreased by £152,000 to £4.7 million.

The cost of the prince and the Duchess of Cornwall’s official travel by air and rail rose by almost a third (31%) – jumping from £1.01 million to £1.33 million.

The prince’s taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant income was up 66%, to £1.99 million, to cover the increased cost of travel and the Clarence House building works.

The annual review covers the period from April 1 2018 to March 31 2019.

ANTIGUA/NEW DELHI — Bank fraud fugitive Mehul Choksi may be extradited to India after Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne said the citizenship of the billionaire diamond trader will be revoked by the Caribbean country after he exhausts all his legal options, according to a media report.

Choksi, 60 and his nephew Nirav Modi, who is currently in a London jail, are wanted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI for allegedly defrauding the Punjab National Bank (PNB) to the tune of Rs 13,400 crore. 

“His citizenship was processed; he got through but the reality is his citizenship will be revoked and he will be repatriated to India; so there is recourse. It’s not a case that we are trying to provide any safe harbour for criminals, for those who are involved in financial crimes,” Prime Minister Browne was quoted as saying by the Antigua Observer on Monday.

“We have to allow for due process. He has a matter before the court and as we said to the Indian Government, criminals have fundamental rights, too, and Choksi has a right to go to court and defend his position. But I can assure you, after he has exhausted all of his legal options, he will be extradited,” he said.

Meanwhile, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said he did not have information on the matter.

NEW DELHI — Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Tuesday termed the lynching of a 24-year-old man in Jharkhand a “heinous crime” and said “Jai Shri Ram” can be chanted by embracing people and not by throttling them.

Naqvi made the remarks on the sidelines of a training programme for Haj deputationists and called for stern action against those involved in such incidents.

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Tabrez Ansari was attacked by a mob, which accused him of theft and allegedly forced him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman” in Jharkhand’s Saraikela Kharsawan district.

“Jai Shri Ram can be chanted by embracing people and not after throttling them. Such incidents cannot be justified. We have committed that we won’t let the destructive agenda dominate the development agenda,” Naqvi said.

“People who are involved in such incidents have only one motive ― to spoil the positive atmosphere created by the government. These are isolated cases and we are completely against them,” he said, adding that stern action should be taken against people who commit such heinous crimes.

Eleven people have been arrested in connection with Ansari’s death and a special investigation team has been set up to look into the matter.

SOUTHAMPTON — Shakib Al Hasan has been the architect of each of Bangladesh’s three victories at the World Cup but the all-rounder denies they are a one-man army.

The 32-yer-old made 51 on Monday to reclaim his position as the tournament’s leading scorer and logged the ongoing World Cup’s best bowling figures of 5-29 in their comprehensive victory against Afghanistan.

His stellar all-round show earned him his third man-of-the-match award of the tournament but Shakib also acknowledged contribution from his team mates, including Mushfiqur Rahim who topscored with 83.

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“It’s not like that... we have had several contributions,” Shakib said, dismissing they are essentially a one-man army.

“You always need, especially on wickets like this, to string together small contributions from different players.

“Luckily I’m doing well, but a team can win only if others also contribute.”

Shakib’s fifth 50-plus score in six innings, which also contained two centuries, takes his tally to 476, ahead of Australian David Warner (447).

“We’ve seen the same thing in bowling department too, with others also contributing,” said Shakib who has claimed 10 wickets in the tournament.

“Mustafizur (Rahman) and (Mohammad) Saifuddin also have 10 wickets, which is quite impressive.”

Shakib became only the second player, after Yuvraj Singh, to score a fifty and take a five-wicket haul in a World Cup match.

He is also the first player to score 400 runs and take 10 or more wickets in a World Cup.

The spin-bowling all-rounder, however, refused to rate his performance against Afghanistan which kept their semi-final hopes alive. 

“I don’t rank my performance but it’s very satisfying when I’m contributing both with ball and bat.”

Against Afghanistan, the plan was to bat full 50 overs on Hampshire Bowl’s slow wicket and post a total around 240, he said.

“It was not a 300-350 kind of wicket. Our target was to bat full 50 overs and 240 was the minimum target. I thought it was a good thinking.

“We wanted to bat full 50 overs and if we got some extra runs, we’d take it as bonus. That’s exactly what happened and we got 25 more runs. That gave us an edge, to go out and bowl Afghanistan out.”

Bangladesh face former champions India and Pakistan in their next two matches and Shakib wants the team not to lose their focus.

“We have a very important game coming against India. They are a top side, one of the title contenders. It’s not going to be easy but having said that we’ll give our best shot,” he said.

“They got world class players who can win matches single handedly. We have to be at our best. I believe as a team, we are capable enough.”

President Donald Trump on Monday announced a new round of sanctions on Iran including measures targeting its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

At least, that’s the name in the White House transcript.

When he spoke however, he said “Ayatollah Khomeini,” aka Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the country from 1979 until his death in 1989: 

The unexpected shout-out to the long-dead dictator caused Khomeini’s name to trend on Twitter Monday afternoon and evening:  

UPDATE (1:03 a.m. June 25): A New York man ― identified by local news reports as 56-year-old Vittorio Caruso ― died while vacationing in the Dominican Republic earlier this month, the State Department confirmed on Monday. His death brings the total number of American tourists who’ve died in the Caribbean country since June 2018 to at least 10. 

This month alone, at least three Americans have suddenly died while holidaying in the Dominican Republic. Leyla Cox, a 53-year-old New York woman, died in her room at Excellence Resorts in Punta Cana on June 10. The resort said Cox had died of a heart attack but her son told WCBS-TV that he didn’t believe his mother had died of natural causes.  

Three days after Cox’s death, Joseph Allen, a 55-year-old New Jersey native, was found dead in his room at Terra Linda Resort in Sosua. Allen was in good physical health, his family said. His cause of death has not been released.

Caruso, the most recently reported fatality, died on June 17, his family told News 12 Long Island. Family members said they were having difficulty “getting straight answers” from Dominican authorities but said Caruso was believed to have died after suffering respiratory distress and possibly a heart attack.

As the Dominican Republic faces heightened global scrutiny ― and an FBI investigation ― following the rash of tourist deaths, the nation’s officials have continued to insist that the deaths are nothing out of the ordinary.  

“The Dominican Republic is a safe country,” Tourism Minister Francisco Javier Garcia told reporters last week. “There is no such thing as mysterious deaths in the Dominican Republic. There is not an avalanche of deaths.”

“Most of the autopsies show the tourists died of natural causes,” Garcia said, adding that the number of American tourist deaths over the past 12 months was actually lower than over the same period in 2011 and 2015 when the death toll of American tourists was 15. 

Investigators are reportedly looking into whether alcohol ― specifically of the bootlegged and unregulated variety ― could be linked to any of the deaths. 

The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino said last week that it was removing liquor dispensers from guest room minibars at its resort in Punta Cana following the deaths of two Americans at the hotel. The general manager of the resort told CNN, however, that the decision to remove the dispensers had been made independently and wasn’t linked to the two deaths. 

EARLIER:   

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have tapped the FBI to help investigate a series of American tourist deaths in the Caribbean country in recent months.

At least six Americans have mysteriously died at resorts across the Dominican Republic since June 2018, and several others have reported falling violently ill while vacationing there.

Local authorities have not yet established a connection between the incidents, according to the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo. And though Dominican tourism officials say it’s safe for Americans to continue to visit, some family members of the deceased remain skeptical.

Here’s what we know ― and don’t know ― about the incidents so far:

Timeline Of Deaths

June 2018

Yvette Monique Sport of Pennsylvania died in June 2018 during a trip with her fiancé to the Bahía Príncipe resort in Punta Cana on the eastern tip of the island.

The 51-year-old consumed a drink from her room’s minibar, took a shower, went to bed and never woke up, according to her sister Felecia Nieves.

The official cause of death listed on her death certificate is a heart attack. But Nieves told NBC10 that she became suspicious recently after hearing about other Americans who died under similar circumstances.

“There is something dirty at the bottom of this,” Nieves told Reuters.

July 2018

David Harrison, 45, had been vacationing with his wife and 12-year-old son at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Punta Cana when he suddenly fell ill and died.

The Maryland resident had visited the resort several times before and was “relatively healthy,” his wife Dawn McCoy told The Washington Post. But Harrison said he felt sick one afternoon and went to their room to take a nap.

Hours later, McCoy said she discovered her husband sweating profusely as he lay in bed, exuding a pungent odor. She called for help, but Harrison had reportedly died by the time the doctor arrived.

Harrison’s death certificate pointed to a heart attack, atherosclerosis and pulmonary edema, a condition caused by excess fluid in the lungs, as the causes of his death.

McCoy said she emailed the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic last week to see if a toxicology report had been done after hearing about the other tourists’ deaths, the Post reported.

April 2019

Robert Wallace of California also died at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Punta Cana. He was in the country to attend his stepson’s wedding but suddenly fell after drinking scotch from the minibar in his hotel room, his niece, Chloe Arnold, told Fox News.

The 67-year-old “started feeling very sick” after consuming the drink and developed “blood in his urine and stool right afterward,” Arnold said. 

Wallace died three days later. Dominican authorities have yet to provide his family with a cause of death, according to Arnold.

May 2019

Miranda Schaup-Werner, 41, of Pennsylvania, died on May 25 hours after arriving at the Bahía Príncipe’s Bouganville resort, about 60 miles west of Punta Cana, to celebrate her wedding anniversary.

After enjoying a drink from the hotel room’s minibar, Schaup-Werner suddenly cried out in pain and collapsed, according to her husband, Dan Werner.

Werner, a doctor, tried to revive his wife by performing CPR but it was too late, family spokesman Jay McDonald told WPXI.

An autopsy report suggested Schaup-Werner died of internal hemorrhaging, pulmonary edema and an enlarged heart, Dominican officials said. 

May 2019

Five days after Schaup-Werner’s death, a Maryland couple died at Bahía Príncipe La Romana, located just a few hundred feet away from the company’s Bouganville resort.

Nathaniel Edward Holmes, 63, and Cynthia Ann Day, 49, were recently engaged before their trip to the Dominican Republic. Hotel staffers found them unresponsive in their room on May 30 after they missed their scheduled checkout time.

Similar to Schaup-Werner, Holmes and Day each died of respiratory failure and pulmonary edema, Dominican police said. Hotel staffers reportedly did not find any signs of violence.

More Tourists Speak Out

After seeing news reports of the deaths, several other Americans have come forward to say they suffered similar symptoms during recent trips to the Dominican Republic.

Kaylynn Knull and Tom Schwander, a couple from Colorado, said they developed nausea, dizziness, diarrhea and headaches during their stay at Bahía Príncipe La Romana in June 2018.

They filed a lawsuit against the resort after U.S. doctors told them the illness was likely caused by chemicals typically found in pesticides, CBS News reported.

Awilda Montes of New York claimed she vomited blood after drinking a soda from her hotel room’s mini-bar at Bahía Príncipe’s Bouganville resort in October. She said she was immediately brought to a local clinic, where she was treated for pain and vomiting.

Are The Incidents Connected?

The U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo said last week that local authorities had not established a connection between the incidents. Dominican investigators have asked the FBI to assist with further toxicology analysis. The results of these tests may take up to 30 days, the State Department said in a statement Tuesday.

Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The New York Times that it’s “unconscionable” that toxicology reports haven’t yet been released or completed. He said the symptoms reportedly exhibited by the patients appear to be “consistent with poisoning.”

“It’s rare for travelers to die of unknown causes like this,” Inglesby told the Times. “It’s something that investigators should be able to get to the bottom of.”

The Bahía Príncipe hotel chain said in a statement last week that the company would cooperate “completely” with the ongoing investigations.

“We reiterate our firm commitment to collaborating completely with the authorities and hope for a prompt resolution of their inquiries and actions and will not be making any further statements that may interfere with them,” according to Bahía Príncipe’s statement.

Bahía Príncipe said its employees have received threats after the deaths and warned that it could take legal action against anyone who disseminates “false information” that “threatens the image and reputation of the company.”

Hard Rock officials said in a statement that they are “deeply saddened” by the deaths of Wallace and Harrison. “We are currently waiting for official reports regarding these deaths,” according to the statement.

Meanwhile, family members are left wondering if these incidents could have been prevented.

“We have so many questions,” Arnold, Wallace’s niece, told Fox News. “We don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”