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Donald Trump arrives in Israel amid tensions with Benjamin Netanyahu over Jerusalem and Western Wall

Donald Trump is arriving in Israel after a two-day trip to Saudi Arabia

Donald Trump arrives in Israel today to try to revive the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process but his trip begins under the shadow of unexpected tensions with the Right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

While the Israeli Right openly cheered Mr Trump’s election, many have been surprised by his enthusiastic pursuit of the “the ultimate deal” - an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty - and his calls for Israel to hold off on expanding settlements while the president tries to broker talks.

The US and Israeli sides have clashed in recent days over the status of Jerusalem, after the White House refused to say whether it considered the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, to be part of Israel.

The flare-up forced Mr Netanyahu to declare on Sunday that the Western Wall will “always be under Israeli sovereignty” and would never be given up during any peace talks.

Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would always have sovereignty over the Western Wall

Mr Trump will become the first sitting US president ever to go to the Western Wall today, but the White House pointedly refused to let Mr Netanyahu join on the visit, fearing that the Israeli prime minister’s presence would make it look like the US was acknowledging Israeli sovereignty.

Mr Netanyahu struck an upbeat note at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, telling Mr Trump that Israel will “receive you with open arms”.

“I will discuss with President Trump ways to strengthen even further the first and strongest alliance with the US. We will strengthen security ties, which are strengthening daily, and we will also discuss ways to advance peace,” Mr Netanyahu said.

But behind the scenes the prime minister spent the weekend in a series of bruising confrontations with his own ministers ahead of the trip.

Many Israeli ministers reportedly decided not to attend the welcoming ceremony for Mr Trump at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport because of the onerous security and because they would not get a chance to shake the president’s hand.

After learning that only a few of his ministers planned to show up, a furious Mr Netanyahu ordered all his cabinet members to make an appearance, according to Haaretz.

Israel was reportedly concerned that its welcome might seem small compared to the lavish ceremony put on by Saudi Arabia, complete with horse guards and a military flyover, when Mr Trump arrived in the Arab state.

In a gesture of goodwill towards Mr Trump’s peacemaking efforts, Mr Netanyahu also forced through a series of measures designed to improve life for the roughly 2.5 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.

The package, which will allow for thousands of Palestinians homes to be built and some easing of checkpoint restrictions, was opposed by ministers from the Right.

Mr Trump will also meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

The Palestinians appear to have attempted a goodwill gesture of their own with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, reportedly prepared to offer greater land swaps as part of a peace deal than the Palestinian side has previously agreed to.

Mr Trump has so far shown little interest in the fiendishly complex details of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking but has said he is bullish on the chances for peace. “I think we have a very, very good chance of making a deal,” he told the Israel Hayom newspaper.

No breakthroughs are expected during Mr Trump’s 28-hour visit but the US hopes it will lay the groundwork for renewed talks supported by the Arab world.

Mr Trump will urge Israel to hold off on settlement expansion and encourage the Palestinians to stop incitement of violence towards Israel, a US official said.

The US president will meet be greeted at the airport by Mr Netanyahu and then meet with Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s figurehead president who has few formal powers.

From there he will head to Jerusalem’s Old City, where he will visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - built on what is believed to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion - and the Western Wall. In the evening he will meet with Mr Netanyahu.

On Tuesday, Mr Trump will head to Bethlehem to meet with Mr Abbas and then visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial. He will end the visit with a speech at the Israel Museum, where is expected to lay out his broad vision of a peace deal.

The visit is taking place amid an huge security operation, nicknamed “Blue Shield” by Israel’s security forces. Around 5,000 police officers are on the streets of Jerusalem and many of the roads around the King David hotel have been closed for Mr Trump’s security.

His entourage has taken up 1,100 hotel rooms across the city and hotels that normally accommodate tourists to the Holy Land have been turned into command centres for the White House and the Secret Service.

“While the president is here, we’re both the White House and Fort Knox,” said Sheldon Ritz, the director of operations at the King David.

Some residents of the Old City have been forced to stay in their homes in the hours ahead of Mr Trump’s visit while security preparations are put in place.

Security Experts Scramble to Contain Fallout From Cyberattacks

A sign outside the Royal London Hospital, in Central London. The hospital was one of a number of hospitals and institutions operated by Britain’s National Health Service hit Friday by a large-scale ransomware cyber attack.

The “ransomware” attacks across continents raised fears that people would not be able to meet ransom demands before their data are destroyed.

Governments, companies and security experts from China to the United Kingdom on Saturday raced to contain the fallout from an audacious cyberattack that spread quickly across the globe, raising fears that people would not be able to meet ransom demands before their data are destroyed.

The global efforts come less than a day after malicious software, transmitted via email and stolen from the National Security Agency, exposed vulnerabilities in computer systems in almost 100 countries in one of the largest “ransomware” attacks on record.

The cyberattackers took over the computers, encrypted the information on them and then demanded payment of $300 or more from users to unlock the devices. Some of the world’s largest institutions and government agencies were affected, including the Russian Interior Ministry, FedEx in the United States and Britain’s National Health Service.

As people fretted over whether to pay the digital ransom or lose data from their computers, experts said the attackers might pocket more than $1 billion worldwide before the deadline ran out to unlock the machines.
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The coordinated attack was first reported in the United Kingdom and spread globally. It has set off fears that the effects of the continuing threat will be felt for months, if not years. It also raised questions about the intentions of the hackers: Did they carry out the attack for mere financial gain or for other unknown reasons?

“Ransomware attacks happen every day — but what makes this different is the size and boldness of the attack,” said Robert Pritchard, a cybersecurity expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, in London. “Despite people’s best efforts, this vulnerability still exists, and people will look to exploit it.”

While most cyberattacks are inherently global, the current one, experts say, is more virulent than most. Security firms said the attacks had spread to all corners of the globe, with Russia hit the worst, followed by Ukraine, India and Taiwan, said Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity firm.

The attack is believed to be the first in which such a cyberweapon developed by the N.S.A. has been used by cybercriminals against computer users around the globe.

Across Asia, several universities and organizations said they had been affected. In China, the virus hit the computer networks of both companies and universities, according to the state-run news media. News about the attack began trending on Chinese social media on Saturday, though most attention was focused on university networks, where there were concerns about students losing access to their academic work.

The attack also spread like wildfire in Europe. Companies like Deutsche Bahn, the German transport giant; Telefónica, a Spanish telecommunications firm, though no major service problems had been reported across the region’s transportation or telecom networks.

Renault, the European automaker, said on Saturday that its French operations had been hit by the attack, while one of its plants in Slovakia was shut down because of the digital virus. Nissan, the Japanese auto giant, said that its manufacturing center in Sunderland in the north of England had been affected, though a spokesman declined to comment on whether the company’s production had been stopped.

The British National Health Service said that 45 of its hospitals, doctors’ offices and ambulance companies had been crippled — making it perhaps one of the largest institutions affected worldwide. Surgical procedures were canceled and some hospital operations shut down as government officials struggled to respond to the attack.

“We are not able to tell you who is behind that attack,” Amber Rudd, Britain’s home secretary, told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Saturday. “That work is still ongoing.”

While American companies like FedEx said they had also been hit, experts said that computer users in the United States had so far been less affected than others after a British cybersecurity researcher inadvertently stopped the ransomware attack from spreading more widely.

As part of the digital attack, the hackers, who have yet to be identified, had included a way of disabling the malware in case they wanted to shut down their activities. To do so, the assailants included code in the ransomware that would stop it from spreading if the virus sent an online request to a website created by the attackers.

This so-called kill switch would stop the malware from spreading as soon as the website went online and communicated with the spreading digital virus.

When the 22-year-old British researcher, whose Twitter handle is @MalwareTechBlog, confirmed his involvement but insisted on anonymity because he did not want the public scrutiny, saw that the kill switch’s domain name — a long and complicated set of letters — had yet to be registered, he bought it himself. By making the site go live, the researcher shut down the hacking attack before it could fully spread to the United States.

“The kill switch is why the U.S. hasn’t been touched so far,” said Matthieu Suiche, founder of Comae Technologies, a cybersecurity company in the United Arab Emirates. “But it’s only temporary. All the attackers would have to do is create a variant of the hack with a different domain name. I would expect them to do that.”

The ability of the cyberattack to spread so quickly was partly because of its high level of sophistication.

The malware, experts said, was based on a method that the N.S.A. is believed to have developed as part of its arsenal of cyberweapons. Last summer, a group calling itself the “Shadow Brokers” posted online digital tools that it had stolen from the United States government’s stockpile of hacking weapons.

The connection to the N.S.A. is likely to draw further criticism from privacy advocates who have repeatedly called for a clampdown on how the agency collects information online.

As the fallout from the attack continued, industry officials said law enforcement would find it difficult to catch the ringleaders, mostly because such cyberattacks are borderless crimes in which the attackers hide behind complex technologies that mask their identities. At the same time, national legal systems were not created to handle such global crimes.

Brian Lord, a former deputy director for intelligence and cyberoperations at Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s equivalent to the N.S.A., said that any investigation, which would include the F.B.I. and the National Crime Agency of Britain, would take months to identify the attackers, if it ever does.

By focusing the attacks on large institutions with a track record of not keeping their technology systems up-to-date, global criminal organizations can cherry-pick easy targets that are highly susceptible to such hacks, according to Mr. Lord.

“Serious organized crime is looking to these new technologies to the maximum effect,” Mr. Lord said. “With cybercrime, you can operate globally without leaving where you already are.”

Of the current attack, he said: “It was well thought-out, well timed and well coordinated. But, fundamentally, there is nothing unusual about its delivery. It is still fundamentally robbery and extortion.”

As part of the efforts to combat the attack, Microsoft, whose Windows software lies at the heart of the potential hacking vulnerability, released a software update available to those affected by the attack and others that could be potential targets.

Yet, security experts said the software upgrade, while laudable, came too late for many of the tens of thousands of machines that were locked and whose data could be erased.

Government officials and industry watchers also warned on Saturday that other hackers might now try to use the global ransomware attack for their own means, potentially tweaking the code and developing their own targets for new cyberattacks.

“As with everything in cyber, we’re now waiting for the next type of attack,” said Paul Bantick, a cyber security expert at Beazley, a global insurance underwriter, who has handled similar ransomware attacks for clients around the world.

“Ransomware like this has been on the rise over the last 18 months,” he said. “This represents the next step that people were expecting.”

South Korea's shy new President Moon hits the spotlight

Moon Jae-in, the candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, takes a rest with his wife Kim Jung-sook at a mountain behind his private house in Seoul, South Korea.

South Korean human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in never felt comfortable being at the Blue House when he was a top aide to the president. He quit in 2004, a year into the job, and went on a long hike in the Himalayas.

Although he would return to the presidential office a month later, the liberal idealist, who once dreamed of opening a pro-bono law practice in a Korea reunified with the North, says he has always been uneasy in the limelight.

Now he has the eyes of 51 million South Koreans on him after exit polls projected that he won a Tuesday election to succeed the ousted Park Geun-hye as president.

Moon favors dialogue with North Korea to ease rising tension over its accelerating nuclear and missile programs. He also wants to reform powerful family-run conglomerates, such as Samsung and Hyundai, and boost fiscal spending to create jobs.

Recalling his life at the Blue House in 2003-2008, he said in his 2011 book "Destiny": "I always felt uncomfortable. I felt that the job was not suitable for me, as if I was wearing clothes that did not fit. I always thought 'I will go back to my place, a lawyer'."

A close confidant and a top aide to former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, Moon said it was his old friend's apparent suicide in 2009 amid a bribery investigation into his family after his term in office ended, that drew him into electoral politics, and eventually a run for the highest office.

Moon was born on Jan. 24, 1953, during the Korean War, on Geoje island off the southern tip of the peninsula. His parents had fled from the North during the war, sailing for three days on the deck of a U.S. ship packed with refugees.

“I was thinking I wanted to finish my life there in Hungnam doing pro-bono service," he said in his book published in January, referring to his parents' hometown on North Korea's east coast.

"When peaceful reunification comes, the first thing I want to do is to take my 90-year-old mother and go to her hometown."

'NERDY STYLE'

As a law student in the 1970s, he was jailed twice during pro-democracy protests against the dictatorship of Park Chung-hee - father of Park Geun-hye - and his successor, Chun Doo-hwan.

He was released from jail after passing a state bar exam.

As a conscript in South Korea's special forces, Moon was part of mission that responded after North Korean troops murdered an American soldier with an axe in the demilitarized zone in 1976.

Moon joined Roh's law practice in Busan city in 1982, defending democracy and labor activists during the rule of authoritarian military presidents.

"Moon had a distinctively nerdy style, reviewing papers after papers quietly as he prepared for court cases," Seol Dong-il, who worked with Moon and Roh at the law firm, told Reuters.

"When workers sought advice from him, Moon used to sit down for hours to listen to them."

Moon cut short his trek in the Himalayas in 2004 when he read news in Nepal that parliament had passed an impeachment motion against Roh for allegedly violating election campaign laws.

He returned to join a team of lawyers who successfully argued Roh's case at the Constitutional Court, which overturned the motion.

GLASS OF SOJU

Moon helped Roh open the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Park in 2004 and helped him prepare for a rare summit with then North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2007.

North Korea's official media have not mentioned Moon by name but said it was time to deal the conservatives a crushing election defeat so the two Koreas could put a period of confrontation behind them.

“We should end the history of North-South confrontation that has been continued by the puppet conservative group, and we as the same race should gather our strength to open a new era of independent reunification," the North's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on Monday.

On the campaign trail during 2004 parliamentary elections, a "very shy" Moon cut a "ridiculously awkward" figure, recalled former politician Choi Nak-jeong.

Moon himself entered politics in 2012, winning a parliamentary seat in Busan, Roh's old political base. Later that year, he ran for president, losing to Park by a slim margin.

Moon faulted Park Geun-hye for being walled off from the public, and has pledged to turn the Blue House into a "resting space for the people". He says he will work instead out of a 19-storey government building in central Seoul.

"I will be a president that can share a glass of soju with the public after work," he told reporters in April, referring to South Korea's vodka-like liquor.

Moon, a Catholic, is married with a son and a daughter.

Appeals court set to hear arguments on Trump's revised travel ban

A member of the Al Murisi family, Yemeni nationals who were denied entry into the U.S. last week because of the recent travel ban, shows the cancelled visa in their passport from their failed entry to reporters as they successfully arrive to be reunited with..

President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban on people entering the United States from six countries faces its latest legal test on Monday before a federal appeals court in Virginia.

The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear an hour of oral arguments in the Trump administration's appeal of a March 16 ruling by Maryland-based federal judge Theodore Chuang.

His decision blocked part of a March 6 order that restricted entry for 90 days from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The March order was Trump's second effort to craft travel restrictions. The first, issued on Jan. 27, led to chaos and protests at airports before being blocked by courts. The second order was intended to overcome the legal problems posed by the original ban, but was also blocked by judges before it could go into effect on March 16.

Another federal judge in Hawaii blocked the entry restrictions and part of the order that suspended entry of refugee applicants for 120 days. An appeal in that case will be considered by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 15.

The challengers in the Maryland case include six people, some of whom are U.S. citizens, who say the ban would prevent family members from entering the United States.

The lawsuit said that the order violates federal immigration law and a section of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment that prohibits government discrimination on the basis of religion.

The administration said in court papers that the claims are "speculative and not ripe" with none of them being able to show a "concrete, imminent injury" traceable to the order.

Government lawyers said the court should not base its findings on comments made by Trump during the 2016 election campaign about his intention to impose a so-called Muslim ban because those statements were made before he was sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, representing the challengers, said in court papers that Trump’s comments before the election cannot be ignored.

"President Trump publicly committed himself to an indefensible goal: banning Muslims from coming to the United States," the ACLU lawyers wrote.

Whatever the court rules, the case is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which would make the final decision.

Emmanuel Macron labelled 'a gay psychopath who hates France' in Russian media

Emmanuel Macron becomes the youngest French President in the history of the republic

Russian media has described the new President of France, Emmanuel Macron, as a gay psychopath who hates his country.

An article in Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian tabloid newspaper, refers to a picture of a topless Mr Macron as he poses for a magazine with the title “coming out”.

The piece then later goes on to call Mr Macron a psychopath and suggest that he does not love France and instead only loves himself.

In reference to the picture, the article reads: “For gays, this expression means 'out of the shadows', to recognise you’re gay too”.

The article also cites a psychiatrist, Adriano Sagatori, who claimed to have studied the biography of the French President.

He described Mr Macron as a1 psychopath who he said would not fight for the French people.

“Like all psychopaths, he believes in his higher purpose. Macron does not love France and will not fight for the French people.

“Macron loves only himself and he will fight to defend their fragile identity," KP claimed in its article.

The piece also goes on to say that the word psychopath is not an insult and adds that the French deserve Mr Macron.

“They, [the French], have to go through globalist hell. They do not deserve democracy, paid for the lives of millions of Soviet soldiers,” it says.

This is not the first time Russian media has chosen to attack Mr Macron and question his sexuality.

Sputnik, a Russian government-controlled news agency, previously claimed Mr Macron was “secretly gay and living a ‘double life' while backed by a “very wealthy gay lobby.”

There have also been accusations, that cite intelligence sources, that suggest Russia targeted Mr Macron in an online campaign. Disobedient Media, which was founded in California by the right-wing journalist William Craddick, attributed the claims to “leaked documents” when it first reported them.

Nicolas Vanderbiest, a commentator for France Culture, tweeted: “So the fake news story on Macron’s account in the Bahamas, we can say without being misleading, that it was by the Russians.”

En Marche, Mr Macron's party's, digital chief Mounir Mahjoubi, also claimed it had been targeted by Russia-linked hackers.

Code within a cache of up to 9GB of data and documents were posted on an anonymous filesharing website and was partly written in Russian after there was a leak of emails from Mr Macron’s campaign team.

Analysts believe it may have been orchestrated by the same group responsible for the Democratic National Committee leak.

In the French election Mr Macron comprehensively beat Marine Le Pen of the hard-right Front National.

He successfully secured 65 per cent of valid votes cast compared with only 35 per cent for his opponent.

At the age of 39, Mr Macron is now the youngest President in the Republic’s history.

EPA dismisses climate change scientists 'to replace them with industry reps'

'The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community'

The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by reducing the role of academic research.

A spokesman for the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, JP Freire.

The dismissals on Friday came about six weeks after the House passed a bill aimed at changing the composition of another EPA scientific review board to include more representation from the corporate world.

President Donald Trump has directed Pruitt to radically remake the EPA, pushing for deep cuts in its budget — including a 40 per cent reduction for its main scientific branch — and instructing him to roll back major Obama-era regulations on climate change and clean water protection. In recent weeks, the agency has removed some scientific data on climate change from its websites, and Pruitt has publicly questioned the established science of human-caused climate change.

In his first outings as EPA administrator, Pruitt has made a point of visiting coal mines and pledging that his agency will seek to restore that industry, even though many members of both of the EPA’s scientific advisory boards have historically recommended stringent constraints on coal pollution to combat climate change.

Freire said the agency wanted “to take as inclusive an approach to regulation as possible.”

“We want to expand the pool of applicants,” for the scientific board, he said, “to as broad a range as possible, to include universities that aren’t typically represented and issues that aren’t typically represented.”

Science advocates denounced the move as part of a broader push by the EPA to downgrade science and elevate business interests.
“This is completely part of a multifaceted effort to get science out of the way of a deregulation agenda,” said Ken Kimmell, the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “What seems to be premature removals of members of this Board of Science Counselors when the board has come out in favor of the EPA strengthening its climate science, plus the severe cuts to research and development — you have to see all these things as interconnected.”

The scientists dismissed from the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors received emails from an agency official informing them that their three-year terms had expired and would not be renewed. That was contrary, the scientists said, to what they had been told by officials at the agency in January, just before Trump’s inauguration.

“Most of us on the council are academic people,” said Ponisseril Somasundaran, a chemist at Columbia University who focuses on managing hazardous waste. “I think they want to bring in business and industry people.”

Courtney Flint, a professor of natural resource sociology at Utah State University who has served on the board since 2014, said she was surprised by the dismissal.

“I believe this is political,” said Flint, whose research focuses on how communities respond to major disruptions in the environment, such as exposure to toxic pollution, forest fires and climate change. “It’s unexpected. It’s a red flag.”

Pruitt arrives at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (Getty)

Another of the dismissed scientists made his grievances public. “Today, I was Trumped,” Robert Richardson, an environmental economist at Michigan State University, wrote on Twitter. “I have had the pleasure of serving on the EPA Board of Scientific Counselors, and my appointment was terminated today.”

The board is charged with reviewing and evaluating the research conducted by the agency’s scientists. Those studies are used by government regulators to draft rules and restrictions on everything from hazardous waste dumped in water to the emissions of carbon dioxide that contribute to climate change.

Members of the board say they have reviewed the EPA’s scientific research on the public health impact of leaking underground fuel tanks, the toxicity of the chemicals used to clean up oil spills, and the effects of the spread of bark beetles caused by a warming climate.

A larger, corresponding panel, the 47-member Science Advisory Board, advises the agency on what areas it should conduct research in and evaluates the scientific integrity of some of its regulations.

Both boards, which until now have been composed almost entirely of academic research scientists, have long been targets of political attacks. Congressional Republicans and industry groups have sought to either change their composition or weaken their influence on the environmental regulatory process.

France's new president Emmanuel Macron never held elected office

Emmanuel Macron, winner of France's presidential election, says he will fight "the divisions" in the country after a campaign that laid bare the "anger, anxiety and doubts" of many voters.

The former investment banker and economy minister easily beat off a challenge from anti-immigration nationalist Marine Le Pen.

Emmanuel Macron becomes France's youngest president, after the 39-year-old former investment banker and economy minister defeated anti-immigration nationalist Marine Le Pen in Sunday's presidential runoff.

Macron's precocious achievement erases a record held since 1848 by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte — Napoleon’s nephew. He won the French presidency at age 40.

Macron has never held elected office.

France's 25th president is a business-friendly centrist who emerged from relative obscurity only a year ago, when he launched an independent political movement called En Marche! that promised to break with decades of French political tradition and rule neither from the left nor right.

He quit incumbent President François Hollande's Socialist government to run for office as an independent after Hollande decided not to seek a second term.

Macron's victory represents a forceful repudiation of a European backlash against Muslim immigration and unity across the continent, both threatened by Le Pen, who favored letting France leave the 28-nation European Union.

He is a charismatic and confident speaker who is married to a former high school teacher who is 20 years older than he is.

"The task ahead will be difficult but I will always tell you the truth. I will protect you against threats," Macron said in a victory speech to supporters outside the Louvre museum in Paris. "I want to unite our people and our country. I will serve you with humility and force in the name of liberté, égalité, fraternité."

Macron has promised to invest in public health and infrastructure, cut corporate tax rates and modernize workplace rules in a country that cherishes its time off. The "Macron Law" is a bill he introduced as economy minister — an appointed position — that allowed more stores to open on Sundays.

During his time working for Hollande, Macron attempted to shake off negative perceptions of France as a place to do business.

"In France, we have always (been) afraid and upset by the positive destruction of past jobs," Macron told USA TODAY in 2015 ahead of a trip to the United States to promote his country as a destination for technology startups. "Really, creation and innovation are part of the French DNA."

"The surge of support for Emmanuel Macron shows that liberal, pro-EU centrists may yet have a future in European politics. This would be good for the EU," said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a think tank.

In a last-minute endorsement, former U.S. president Barack Obama publicly announced he favors Macron, saying in a video that he was "not planning to get involved in many elections now that I don’t have to run for office but the French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about."

Obama said he supported Macron because he appealed to "people’s hopes and not their fears."

In his speech to supporters Sunday, Macron promised to unify the country "with love."

But Macron remains untested on security in a country that has seen a series of terrorist attacks in recent years. And he may struggle to implement his ideas unless his party wins many seats in the June parliamentary elections.

"With a new party, he doesn't have a party machine, he doesn't have any party funding yet, and he has a mountain to climb in selecting 577 candidates to challenge sitting parliamentarians in the National Assembly," said Francoise Boucek, a French-born political expert at Queen Mary University of London.

Macron is also not technically France's youngest-ever ruler. King Louis XIV was just 4 years old when he started to rule France in 1643.

Oil trades near five-month lows despite Saudi assurances on cuts

Pump jacks are silhouetted against the rising sun on an oilfield in Baku, Azerbaijan,

Oil prices fell to fresh five-month lows on Friday on concerns about a persistent glut despite assurances from Saudi Arabia that Russia was ready to join OPEC in extending supply cuts.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures fell more than 3 percent in early trading to below $44 per barrel, the lowest since Nov 14. It fell 4 percent on Thursday.

Benchmark Brent also fell 3 percent to below $47 per barrel, its lowest since Nov 30, which was the date the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) triggered a rally when it said it would cut production in the first half of 2017.

Both benchmarks trimmed losses to trade close to Thursday's close by 1007 GMT (6.07 a.m. ET) after Saudi Arabia's OPEC Governor Adeeb Al-Aama told Reuters OPEC and non-OPEC nations were close to agreeing a deal on supply cuts.

"Based on today's data, there's a growing conviction that a six-month extension may be needed to rebalance the market, but the length of the extension is not firm yet," the Saudi official said.

OPEC sources said on Thursday OPEC was likely to extend cuts when it meets on May 25 but said a deeper cut was unlikely. OPEC and non-OPEC states initially agreed to cut 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first six months of 2017.

Brent traded volumes on Thursday reached an all-time high of nearly 542,000 contracts suggesting hedge funds had accelerated cuts in their long positions. (tmsnrt.rs/2oSQUu5).

"It is now-or-never for oil bulls," said U.S. commodity analysis firm The Schork Report. "They either put up a defense here or risk further emboldening the bears for a run at the $40 threshold (for WTI)."

Both Brent and WTI futures are down about 17 percent for the year so far despite the OPEC effort to support prices. The benchmarks are trading around levels last seen before the joint deal to cut output was announced by OPEC and non-OPEC states.

"So far OPEC's strategy to draw down inventories has not worked," Neil Beveridge, senior analyst at AB Bernstein in Hong Kong, wrote. "It seems obvious to us that OPEC will need to keep the cuts in place for longer than the next six months if their strategy is to have any chance of success."

Adding to concerns about bulging inventories, traders pointed to soaring U.S. oil output, which is up more than 10 percent since mid-2016 to 9.3 million bpd, almost matching output of top producers Russia and Saudi Arabia.

"Any likelihood of an increase in the level of cuts remains slim with OPEC officials playing down this possibility," said James Woods, global investment analyst at Rivkin Securities.

Source : Reuters

North Korea accuses CIA of 'bio-chemical' plot against leadership

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves to people attending a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. Image source : REUTERS

North Korea on Friday accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea's intelligence service of a plot to attack its "supreme leadership" with a bio-chemical weapon and said such a "pipe-dream" could never succeed.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks, driven by concern that North Korea might conduct its sixth nuclear test or test-launch another ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Reclusive North Korea warned this week that U.S. hostility had brought the region to the brink of nuclear war.

The North's Ministry of State Security released a statement saying "the last-ditch effort" of U.S. "imperialists" and the South had gone "beyond the limits".

"The Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. and the Intelligence Service (IS) of south Korea, hotbed of evils in the world, hatched a vicious plot to hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK and those acts have been put into the extremely serious phase of implementation after crossing the threshold of the DPRK," the North's KCNA news agency quoted the statement as saying, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"A hideous terrorists' group, which the CIA and the IS infiltrated into the DPRK on the basis of covert and meticulous preparations to commit state-sponsored terrorism against the supreme leadership of the DPRK by use of bio-chemical substance, has been recently detected."

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul and South Korea's National Intelligence Service were not immediately available for comment. The U.S. military has said CIA director Mike Pompeo visited South Korea this week and met the NIS chief for discussions.

KCNA said the two intelligence services "ideologically corrupted" and bribed a North Korean surnamed Kim and turned him into "a terrorist full of repugnance and revenge against the supreme leadership of the DPRK".

"They hatched a plot of letting human scum Kim commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership during events at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and at military parade and public procession after his return home," KCNA said.

"They told him that assassination by use of biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance is the best method that does not require access to the target, their lethal results will appear after six or twelve months...

"Then they handed him over $20,000 on two occasions and a satellite transmitter-receiver and let him get versed in it."

North Korea conducted an annual military parade, featuring a display of missiles and overseen by top leader Kim Jong Un and his right-hand men on April 15 and then a large, live-fire artillery drill 10 days later.

KCNA, which often carries shrill, bellicose threats against the United States, gave lengthy details about the alleged plot but said it could never be accomplished.

"Criminals going hell-bent to realize such a pipe dream cannot survive on this land even a moment," it said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that Washington was working on more sanctions against North Korea if it takes steps that merit a new response. He also warned other countries their firms could face so-called secondary sanctions for doing illicit business with Pyongyang.

Tillerson said the Trump administration had been "leaning hard into China ... to test their willingness to use their influence, their engagement with the regime".

Two women accused of killing the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim with a chemical weapon appeared in court in Malaysia last month.

They allegedly smeared the man's face with the toxic VX nerve agent, a chemical described by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13.

T-shirts sold at Marine Le Pen rally found to be made in Bangladesh despite ‘made in France’ policy

Marine Le Pen speaks at a a campaign rally in Villepinte, near Paris, on 1 May Reuters

Souvenir T-shirts sold at a Marine Le Pen were made in Bangladesh, despite the far-right candidate consistently championing “made in France” as a key pillar of her economic programme.

The far right presidential candidate has repeatedly said she would defend French interests against globalisation and the relocation of factories abroad. But the memorabilia sold in her name does not appear to be an example of the “economic patriotism” she has so vigorously advocated.

Labels on most the polo shirts, which were on sale at Ms Le Pen’s meeting in the northern Parisian suburb of Villepinte earlier this week had all been cut out, preventing buyers from finding out where the clothes were made.

But reporters from BFM TV found the shirt displayed on a mannequin had an untouched label stating the piece of clothing had been made in Bangladesh - a country well known for its textile manufacture and cheap labour.

Asked whether the shirts were not a contradiction to Ms Le Pen’s campaign pledges, the stall holder selling the memorabilia said the embroidery work had been done in France.

“This is not at all contradictory to Ms Le Pen’s programme because we are asking for products to be made in France and the embroidery work on the T-shirts was made in France," he told the TV station.

Marine Le Pen has repeatedly championed French products

The T-Shirt's label said it had been made in Bangladesh

“So the finished work was made in France. The problem for the supplier was a problem of workforce, which was not competitive enough to make in France. This is why we are fighting for French production lines.”

Asked whether he could explain why the labels had been cut from every single T-shirts, the vendor said he could not answer the question.

Ms Le Pen stepped down as leader of the far right Front National party last week, claiming it would allow her to represent better the interests of "all French people".

Despite party's patriotic stance, last year T-shirts made for the party were found to have been produced in Morocco, according to the HuffPost Maghreb.

In 2012, France Soir reported that the official Front National online shop was selling shirts made in Bangladesh.

Venezuela's embattled socialist president calls for citizens congress, new constitution

Venezuelan police clash with opposition activists during a march against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas on May 1, 2017.

The move by Maduro comes amid an escalating political crisis in the economically embattled South American country.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s increasingly embattled president called Monday for a new constitution as an intensifying protest movement entered a second month with clashes between police and anti-government demonstrators.

After hundreds of thousands took to the streets again to call for his ouster, President Nicolas Maduro announced that he was calling for a citizens assembly and a new constitution for the economically flailing South American nation. He said the move was needed to restore peace and stop his political opponents from trying to carry out a coup.

Opposition leaders immediately objected, charging that Maduro was seeking to further erode Venezuela’s constitutional order. Maduro was expected to later give more details about his plan, which is likely to ratchet up tensions even more in a country already on edge.

Many people expect the socialist administration to give itself the power to pick a majority of delegates to a constitutional convention. Maduro could then use the writing of a new constitution as an excuse to put off regional elections scheduled for this year and presidential elections that were to be held in 2018, political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said.

Polling has suggested the socialists would lose both those elections badly. Opposition leaders have pledged to put top government officials in jail if they win power.

If the constitutional process goes forward, opposition leaders will need to focus on getting at least some sympathetic figures included in the citizens assembly. That could distract them from the drumbeat of near daily street protests that they have managed to keep up for weeks.

“It’s a way of calling elections that uses up energy but does not carry risk, because it’s not a universal, direct and secret vote,” Leon said. “And it has the effect of pushing out the possibility of elections this year and probably next year as well.”

The constitution was last rewritten in 1999, early in the 14-year presidency of the late Hugo Chavez, who began Venezuela’s socialist transformation.

The leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Julio Borges, called the idea of a constitutional assembly a “giant fraud” and “trap” by Maduro and his allies to remain in power at any cost. Borges said it would deny Venezuelans the right to express their views at the ballot box, and he urged the military to prevent the “coup” by Maduro.

“What the Venezuelan people want isn’t to change the constitution but to change Maduro through voting,” he said at a news conference in eastern Caracas, where anti-government protesters once again clashed with police Monday.

Anti-government protests have been roiling Venezuela for a month, and Borges said more pressure is needed to restore democracy. He called for a series of street actions, including a symbolic pot-banging protest when Maduro unveiled the details of his plan and a major demonstration Wednesday.

Earlier Monday, anti-Maduro protesters tried to march on government buildings in downtown Caracas, but police blocked their path — just as authorities have done more than a dozen times in four weeks of near-daily protests. Officers launched tear gas and chased people away from main thoroughfares as the peaceful march turned into chaos.

Opposition lawmaker Jose Olivares was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and was led away with blood streaming down his face. Some demonstrators threw stones and gasoline bombs and dragged trash into the streets to make barricades.

A separate government-sponsored march celebrating May Day went off without incident in the city.

Between the two demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of people filled central roads and highways of the city.

At least 29 people have died in the unrest of the past month and hundreds have been injured.

People of all ages and class backgrounds are participating in the protests. The unrest started in reaction to an attempt to nullify the opposition controlled-congress, but has become a vehicle for people to vent their fury at widespread shortages of food and other basic goods, violence on a par with a war zone, and triple-digit inflation. Maduro accuses his opponents of conspiring to overthrow him and undermine the country’s struggling economy.

Protesters have begun showing up for demonstrations with medical masks and bandanas to protect from the clouds of tear gas that police often deploy without warning. Gas masks are hard to find in the shortage-plagued economy, and the government is limiting people bringing them in from abroad.

Many protesters vowed Monday to keep pressuring the government.

“We’re ready to take the streets for a month or however long is needed for this government to understand that it must go,” said Sergio Hernandez, a computer technology worker.

Authorities set up checkpoints that snarled traffic on main highways and closed the city’s subway system, in what opposition leader Henrique Capriles called a futile attempt to hamper the anti-government march.

“The truth is out and no one can stop it,” Capriles said.

Second straight North Korea ballistic missile test fails

An undated file photo released on 24 April 2016 by North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows an 'underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile' conducted at an undisclosed location in North Korea. According to media reports on 28 April 2017 state that North Korea has test-fired a ballistic missile an area just north of Pyongyang.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea's missile exploded shortly after launch. has test-id a missile from the western part of its country.

A North Korean ballistic missile test failed on takeoff early Saturday, the second straight failure this month, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The test came amid heightened global tensions over the reclusive nation's nuclear weapons program, which President Trump has vowed to stop through military means if diplomatic efforts and economic pressure fail.

The missile apparently exploded seconds after liftoff, South Korea's joint chiefs of staff said in a statement, according to Yonhap.

The missile was fired from a site in South Pyeongan province north of Pyongyang, the capital, in the early hours of Saturday morning local time, the BBC reported.

North Korea has not commented publicly on the latest firing.

In a statement, the U.S. Pacific Command office said the missile did not leave North Korean territory. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) "determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America," according to the statement.

The abortive test came just hours after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for tougher sanctions on China and others who trade with North Korea. He told the United Nations Security Council that military action should be considered along with other options.

"All options for responding to future provocations must remain on the table," he said. "Diplomatic and financial levers of power will be backed up by willingness to counteract North Korean aggression with military action, if necessary."

Tillerson said failure to act would be "catastrophic."

North Korea routinely test-fires a variety of ballistic missiles, despite U.N. prohibitions, as part of its push to develop a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching U.S. shores.

A missile launch on April 16 also failed upon launch. It followed a massive military parade, marking the birthday of North Korea state founder Kim Il-sung.

President Trump has taken a hard line with Pyongyang, vowing to prevent the regime of Kim Jong Un from developing a nuclear weapon capable of striking the U.S. He has pressed China, North Korea's closest ally and economic lifeline, to use its influence to persuade Kim to end his nuclear program.

Picture Source : USA TODAY

Trump was briefed on the latest missile test, the White House said in a statement. Shortly after, Trump tweeted that North Korea's test was a show of "disrespect" for China.

"North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!", Trump tweeted.

North Korea has vowed to defend itself with its stockpile of nuclear weapons if the U.S. attacks its territory. South Korea's capital of Seoul, with a metropolitan population of 25 million and thousands of U.S. troops stationed there, is a short distance from the North Korean border.

Canada Today: Behind the Green Gables, Trade Twists and Strange Skies

Amybeth McNulty, the star of the book’s coming Netflix adaptation, “Anne With an E,” near her home in County Donegal, Ireland.

Prince Edward Island has long held an international profile thanks to a fictional redheaded orphan named Anne Shirley, the protagonist of the 1908 novel “Anne of Green Gables.”

With a population of just 146,000, Prince Edward Island is Canada’s tiniest province. But it has long held an international profile thanks to a fictional redheaded orphan named Anne Shirley, the protagonist of the beloved 1908 novel “Anne of Green Gables” by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Willa Pakin writes in the Times Magazine that Polish resistance fighters carried the book to the front and that because of Japan’s large number of postwar orphans, it became part of the school curriculum in the 1950s.

The orphan’s story has been adapted and readapted endlessly. Now it’s back on television. “Anne,” as it’s known on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where its first season winds up on Sunday, is a much different take than earlier film and television productions. It was written and produced by Moira Walley-Beckett, a Vancouver native now based in California. Ms. Pakin writes that “the cheerful novel has, in Walley-Beckett’s hands, become much darker.” Given that Ms. Walley-Beckett’s previous work includes writing for “Breaking Bad,” that shift may not be entirely a surprise, and holds the potential to offend Anne loyalists.

Next month the show will start streaming in the United States on Netflix under the title “Anne With an E.” Canadians who have missed the show can still view it on the CBC’s site until the end of the year.

Turmoil To my knowledge, Hollywood has yet to portray journalists dashing around the world to cover trade talks. As someone who has reported on several negotiations — including the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement — I’d suggest the studios keep it that way.

While the outcome of trade talks often has a powerful influence on a large number of lives and trade issues can stir political passions, trade negotiations usually move at a stately pace and occur mostly in secret. The closest they generally come to drama is the inevitable wait until a final deadline before a deal is announced.

Over past week or so, however, President Trump brought some drama to the somnambulant trade world. First his administration used the latest round in an endless lumber dispute with Canada (the first trade story I covered and one my children can likely inherit if they wish) and an obscure dairy dispute to bash Canadian trade policy. That was soon followed up by suggestions that the president was about to sign Nafta’s death warrant.

Then that zig was followed by the zag of an announcement that Mr. Trump wasn’t going to rip up Nafta, at least for now, but renegotiate it. The change was partly the result of a coordinated effort by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico.

While it’s possible that state of affairs may have spiraled off in yet another direction by the time you read this, it’s more likely that Mr. Trudeau’s government will be focused on figuring out what Canada wants from any talks. We’ve prepared a look at four industries that may become hot points. Mr. Trudeau’s office is also likely hoping that any negotiations will follow the plodding traditions of the past.

Symbolic Catherine Porter was in British Columbia this week on an unrelated assignment when she also found herself looking into the world of totem poles. One result is a fascinating Facebook Live video in which the master carver Christian White shows how he makes them at his workshop in Massett on the Haida Gwaii archipelago. I asked Ms. Porter what prompted her interest: “Haida Gwaii and totem poles are married in my imagination. But I assumed most of the ones I saw on the streets of Old Massett were either relics or copies from distant Haida history — before smallpox, the Indian Act, the potlatch ban, residential schools. Then I stumbled into Christian White’s carving shed, to find his son chipping away at a 62-foot cedar log.” Watch for a story about Mr. White’s work, coming soon.

Old Stock Volkswagen dealers in Canada have quietly dusted off and put back on sale cars that were frozen in inventory in 2015 because of the company’s diesel emissions cheating scandal. The cars have the first part of a new emissions control fix installed and they’re being offered with extraordinary discounts. But I found one expert who cautions that this may be a deal to avoid.

Shooting Star Kevin O’Leary, the investor made famous by reality television, was the last of the 14 candidates to join the race to replace Stephen Harper as Conservative leader. Unexpectedly, he dropped out this week, citing his lack of support in Quebec. The complex voting system, and the sheer number of candidates, still make the race impossible to call as it enters its final month.

A stream of hot, fast-moving gas, nicknamed Steve, glowing over Porteau Cove Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada, in May 2016.

Glowing Heavens Look, up in the sky! In many places in Canada you’ll see something scientists aren’t exactly sure how to describe. So for now, they’re calling it Steve.

Marijuana may be a miracle treatment for children with autism

One study in Israel is studying the effects of cannabis oil on people with severe autism and early returns show it may work miracles.

Yael Shulman sits with her daughter Noa.

MODI’IN, ISRAEL — When Noa Shulman came home from school, her mother, Yael, sat her down to eat, then spoon-fed her mashed sweet potatoes — mixed with cannabis oil.

Noa, who has a severe form of autism, started to bite her own arm. “No sweetie,” Yael gently told her 17-year-old daughter. “Here, have another bite of this.”

Noa is part of the first clinical trial in the world to test the benefits of medicinal marijuana for young people with autism, a potential breakthrough that would offer relief for millions of afflicted children — and their anguished parents.

There is anecdotal evidence that marijuana’s main non-psychoactive compound — cannabidiol or CBD — helps children in ways no other medication has. Now this first-of-its-kind scientific study is trying to determine if the link is real.

Israel is a pioneer in this type of research. It permitted the use of medical marijuana in 1992, one of the first countries to do so. It's also one of just three countries with a government-sponsored medical cannabis program, along with Canada and the Netherlands.

Conducting cannabis research is also less expensive here and easier under Israeli laws, particularly compared to the United States, which has many more legal restrictions.

Autism is one of the fastest-growing developmental disorders, affecting 1 in 68 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its debilitating symptoms include impaired communication and social skills, along with compulsive and repetitive behaviors. Autism typically emerges in infancy or early childhood.

Advocates for combating the disorder are calling attention to it by declaring April National Autism Awareness Month.

Noa's mother has to feed and bathe her and change her diapers. Noa is unable to speak and often behaves aggressively. Yael, a mother of three with a full-time job in this city halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, has tried to find caretakers to help, but they don’t last long.

Only two medications have been approved in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration to treat the symptoms of autism. Both are antipsychotic drugs that are not always effective and carry serious side effects.

When Noa took them, “she was like a zombie,” Yael said. “She would just sit there with her mouth wide open, not moving.”

Noa is part of a study that began in January at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. It involves 120 children and young adults, ages 5 to 29, who have mild to severe autism, and it will last through the end of 2018.

Adi Aran, the pediatric neurologist leading the study, said nearly all the participants previously took antipsychotics and nearly half responded negatively. Yael desperately pushed Aran and other doctors to prescribe cannabis oil after a news report aired about a mother who illegally obtained it for her autistic son and said it was the only thing that helped him.

“Many parents were asking for cannabis for their kids,” Aran said. “First I said, 'No, there’s no data to support cannabis for autism, so we can’t give it to you.'”

He said that changed about a year ago after studies in Israel showed that cannabis helped children with epilepsy by drastically reducing seizures and improving behavior for those who also have autism. Epilepsy afflicts about 30% of autistic children, Aran said.

Mounting anecdotal reports of autistic children who benefited from cannabis also led Aran to pursue more scientific testing. After seeing positive results in 70 of his autistic patients in an observational study, Aran said, “OK we need to do a clinical trial so there will be data."

Study participants are given liquid drops like those mixed into Noa's sweet potatoes. They receive one of two different cannabis oil formulas, or a placebo. The oil does not cause a high because of low levels of THC, marijuana's main psychoactive ingredient.

Yael doesn't know if her daughter is receiving the cannabis or a placebo. Noa is calmer on some days since beginning the trial, she said, but on other days she's aggressive and irritable.

Even so, just being a part of the study gives Yael hope. “I had really come to a point where I no longer had the power — not physically, not emotionally,” she said.

More than 110 cannabis clinical trials are underway in Israel — more than any other country, according to Michael Dor, senior medical adviser at the Health Ministry’s medical cannabis unit.

Alan Shackelford, a Harvard-trained physician, sparked a surge in American interest in cannabis treatment for epileptic children in 2013, when he used medical marijuana to treat a young girl in Colorado and her seizures drastically decreased. He said he tried for years to conduct clinical trials in the U.S., but “I was meeting nothing but closed doors to study something that was so clearly beneficial.”

Shackelford said a colleague spent seven years trying to get approval from U.S. authorities to study cannabis treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. By contrast, Aran said it took Israel’s Ministry of Health six months to approve his clinical trial with autistic children.

“Israel leads the world in inquiries and studies on cannabis as a potential medical treatment,” said Shackelford, who recently launched an Israeli company to conduct research on medical cannabis here because of the restrictions he faced in the United States.

He said the U.S. government has funded $1.4 billion in marijuana research since 2008, but $1.1 billion of that went to studying addiction, withdrawal and drug abuse.

Aran cautioned against premature conclusions about cannabis as a treatment for autism, but he said many children have shown significant improvements. Some no longer hurt themselves or throw tantrums. Some are more communicative. Others were able to return to classes after they had been suspended for behavioral problems.

Tamir Gedo, CEO of Breath of Life Pharma, which provides the cannabis oil for the study, said one mother reported, "My child is speaking relentlessly. … He never spoke before. And he's 12 years old.”

One major concern is the long-term impact of prescribing cannabis to young patients, said Sarah Spence, co-director of the Autism Spectrum Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. “There certainly could be harm” to brain development, she said.

But opioids and antipsychotic drugs currently prescribed to children are more harmful, said Gedo. “These families have no other hope.”

Blast kills American on international monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine

Austrian foreign minister Sebastian Kurz gestures during a press conference with Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic (not pictured) after their meeting in Belgrade, Serbia, on Feb. 13, 2017.

An American paramedic working with an international monitoring group in eastern Ukraine was killed Sunday when their vehicle drove over a mine in separatist-controlled territory, the State Department said Sunday.

"This death underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which these courageous monitors work, including access restrictions, threats, and harassment," the State Department said in a statement. "The United States urges Russia to use its influence with the separatists to allow the (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitoring group) to conduct a full, transparent, and timely investigation."

Chief Monitor Ertugrul Apakan for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said two other people injured were German and from the Czech Republic. Both were hospitalized, Apakan said. The OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission in war-torn Ukraine is an unarmed, civilian team charged with reporting on the status of the struggle and promoting dialogue among parties to the crisis.

"Tragic news from #Ukraine: SMM patrol drove on mine. One #OSCE patrol member killed, one injured," Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz tweeted, calling for a thorough investigation and promising that "those responsible will be held accountable."

The U.S. "again calls upon Russia to use its influence with the separatists to take the first step toward peace to eastern Ukraine and ensure a visible, verifiable, and irreversible improvement in the security situation," the State Department statement said.

The self-proclaimed, separatist Luhansk People's Republic blamed the blast on a "Ukraine subversive group," the Russian news agency Tass reported.

Almost 10,000 people have died in the three-year war between the Ukraine government and Russian-backed separatists. The OSCE mission has been promoting mine awareness in the region — Last month, a 12-year-old boy on his way home from school in eastern Ukraine was killed when a shiny object he picked up turned out to be a mine and exploded in his hands.

Mission members distribute pamphlets warning about the dangers of landmines and helping residents recognize the various types that have been deployed in the region in the past three years, the OSCE said this month.

"Heartfelt condolences to family of victim+SMM team," Kurz tweeted. "Death of colleague is a shock to whole #OSCE. Hope injured monitor will recover soon."

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T-shirts sold at Marine Le Pen rally found to be made in Bangladesh despite ‘made in France’ policy

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Second straight North Korea ballistic missile test fails

Canada Today: Behind the Green Gables, Trade Twists and Strange Skies

Marijuana may be a miracle treatment for children with autism

Blast kills American on international monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine

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