The European Union has long been the target of scorn from American conservatives. It is not hard to see why. Its regulatory bent infuriates free marketeers; its claim to have secured the peace in Europe annoys the partisans of NATO, which has a much better claim; and its quest for “ever closer union” threatens to undermine national sovereignty and democratic accountability. Add to this the EU’s well-publicized travails over its common currency, the euro, and you have the makings of a profound antipathy.

Dalibor Rohac, a Slovak-born European conservative who is affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, shares many of these concerns. “Towards an Imperfect Union” arrives at an especially fraught moment, when Britain is about to vote on whether to remain in the EU and when the European Union itself is riven by a migrant crisis and deepening concerns about Greek debt. Even so, Mr. Rohac asks conservatives to look again at the EU, for whose survival he makes a compelling case.

The author begins by reminding us that the Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek, an icon to free-market conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic, was a strong supporter of European unity. “What we need . . . ,” Hayek wrote in 1944, “is a superior political power which can hold the economic interests in check.” Hayek thought that open markets were a necessary result of political federation, as were “the abrogation of national sovereignties,” as he wrote in a 1939 essay. But he was also thinking militarily: “The main purpose of interstate federation,” he wrote, “is to secure peace: to prevent war between the parts of the federation” and to deter “any danger of attack from without.”

Securing the peace, Mr. Rohac argues, is exactly what the EU tries to do today. It is true that NATO should take much of the credit for keeping the Soviet Union at bay. But the European Union—in its current form and in its pre-1993 precursors, like the European Economic Community—has reduced internal tensions in Western and Central Europe and played a crucial role in the democratic transformation of Eastern Europe and the Balkans after the collapse of communism.

The EU, Mr. Rohac says, should be judged not against some Anglo-American libertarian idea but in the context of the historical weakness of mainland Europe. The dangers of untrammeled sovereignty were demonstrated by the nationalist and totalitarian excesses of the 20th century. In any case, the conservative Euroskeptic goal of a continent of free-trading sovereign states seems unlikely. Just look, Mr. Rohac says, at current trends in European politics, with the rise of populist, nationalist parties: the French National Front, the German Alternative für Deutschland and the ruling Fidesz Party in Hungary. Besides, Mr. Rohac notes, the European Union’s regulatory fervor has largely been devoted to removing barriers to the movement of goods and labor, not to building barriers.

Britain, Mr. Rohac concedes, is an exceptional case. Uniquely among Europeans, “Britons might easily imagine a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous future outside the EU.” One reason is that the United Kingdom—and, before it was formed, England—has enjoyed 1,000 years of more or less unbroken constitutional development, with only brief foreign invasions. Britain was a victor power in both world wars. Unlike the rest of the continent, Britain had no problem that the European project was designed to fix. That said, a precipitate British departure after a “no” vote in this week’s referendum would destabilize Europe and thus hurt the United Kingdom in other ways.

Sometimes Mr. Rohac overstates his case. Understandably keen to stress unforeseen dangers, he argues—against the evidence of the international war-crimes tribunal—that nobody planned the wars in Yugoslavia. On other occasions, he tends toward understatement or lack of ambition. He dismisses as unrealistic the idea of a full political union for continental Europe, even though a full union is the one way of solving the many challenges that Europe has set for itself by having adopted a common currency, a common foreign policy and a shared passport-less travel zone. His own proposals involve tinkering around the edges of current arrangements—for example, allowing member states to trade refugee quotas or replacing the national-border forces of frontline countries like Italy and Greece with a pan-European body.

Given that Europeans have routinely relied on the United States to rescue them during times of crisis—and the unlikelihood of their being able to get themselves out of the current mess unaided—it would have been good to see Mr. Rohac call for greater American engagement on the continent. Historically, Washington was a strong supporter of European political integration and was closely involved in the early stages of the project. As recently as Bill Clinton’s presidency, the U.S. coordinated the eastern enlargement of NATO with that of the European Union. Barack Obama, by contrast, announced a “pivot” to Asia and appeared to seek a “reset” with Russia, at the expense of commitments to the security of Eastern Europe. He has had to row back recently, but there is still scope for a much greater American role in resolving the European crisis. Mr. Rohac misses an opportunity by not spelling out this crucial role.

Still, “Towards an Imperfect Union” mounts a formidable defense of the rationale of the European project. Mr. Rohac also makes a powerful metaphysical argument for maintaining the union. Conservatives tend to be skeptical of radical and irreversible change. The consequences of breaking up the European Union are not foreseeable and could very well be unpleasant. Stepping into the unknown in this way, Mr. Rohac concludes, is not something that any true conservative should be doing.

Mr. Simms is the author of “Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, From 1453 to the Present.”

Summary: Brendan Simms reviews Dalibor Rohac’s “Towards an Imperfect Union: A Conservative Case for the EU.”


Finn was an easy baby, said his mom, Meg Murphy.

He'd play on a blanket with one little toy for hours. "We just thought he was really laid back," Murphy, a mother of three from Downingtown, Pennsylvania, told CBS News.

Her antennae started going up when she and her husband Billy noticed changes with Finn's language. He had started using normal baby words such as "mama," "dada" and "babba," but then he stopped.

"They faded out over time. He would start flapping his hands when he was excited. He wouldn't look when you called his name," she said. They thought he might have hearing problems because he'd had ear infections.

After trouble-shooting with an ear, nose, and throat specialist, tests came back normal on Finn's hearing. He was also checked for seizure issues and cleared. Meg's mom, who had worked in schools over the years, suggested that there may be developmental issues, but Murphy said she brushed the concerns aside, and was actually a little irritated at the suggestion.

"I remember at that time that our pediatrician wasn't concerned. He was like, all kids mature at different rates. But our family members, and my mom in particular, said this wasn't normal," said Murphy.

Finally, to be thorough, they asked their pediatrician for a referral to early intervention services -- state services that can help evaluate or provide special education or therapies and other support to families with children who have disabilities or delays.

"They come to your house -- a child development specialist and a speech therapist -- and they just tried to play with him. He was 14 months old. We thought we were just checking off a box. But at that visit, he didn't want to have anything to do with any of it. He couldn't play with the toys the right way. He didn't want to be with new people," she said.

Finn scored very low on all of the assessments.

"I remember being really devastated," Murphy recalled, but she said it was also a dawning: she realized she needed to harness resources to help her son.

Finn Murphy, pictured at age 4, was diagnosed with autism when he was 17 months old. Close

Speech, occupational and physical therapy began for Finn, for an hour every week.

"They worked with him individually and also taught me how to engage Finn and how to work with him. Before, I'd leave him to play nearby me on his own while doing dishes or other things but because of early intervention, I realized that I really had to get down in his face. He hated it. I remember trying to get him to do puzzles, putting big plastic coins in a plastic bank, playing with shape sorters. I have two other kids now, too, and they just love to pick up toys and do it on their own. We had to teach Finn to do it hand over hand, and give him lots of breaks," she explained.

A formal diagnosis came when Finn was about 17 months old, through doctors at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where the family now visits every six months to check in with autism experts.

When Murphy was newly pregnant with her second child, and Finn wasn't yet two, genetic tests came back showing Finn had two markers for autism.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Finn's condition, is a neurodevelopmental disorder whose causes are still unclear. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in every 68 children in the U.S. has autism. A government survey out late last year suggests the condition may be even more common than that. More boys than girls are diagnosed with autism, the hallmarks of which include ongoing social and communication impairments, and repetitive behaviors or activities. The word "spectrum" refers to the fact that there not a single snapshot of what's normal for autism, but a range of severity and behaviors in children.

"Forty years ago, our definition of autism was different. It was less inclusive. It wasn't that autism didn't exist, it was just viewed differently," Leandra Berry, a pediatric neuropsychologist and associate director of clinical services for the Autism Center at Texas Children's Hospital, told CBS News.

Berry said she's diagnosed children as young as 14 months. Sometimes, though, a diagnosis doesn't come until years or even decades later. "Really there's no upper age limit. People are getting diagnosed even as adults," she said.

"The younger a child is diagnosed the better, said Dr. Patricia Manning-Courtney, director of The Kelly O'Leary Center for ASD, and a professor of pediatrics in the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

However, there is controversy over whether all young children should be screened for autism, or only those whose parents or doctors raise concerns about their development.

In a statement published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said there's insufficient evidence to show that universal screening for autism spectrum disorder in all kids ages 18 to 30 months old is justified.

The task force is an independent panel made up of volunteer experts that makes recommendations about certain preventive care services including screenings, counseling services, and medications. The group's statement pointed out that no study has directly compared the long-term outcomes of children who received screening with those who didn't, and that research showing the effectiveness of early autism treatment has not been based on cases identified through screening.

A commentary in JAMA Pediatrics by Duke autism expert Geraldine Dawson noted that the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics said the task force's recommendations "run counter" to the academy's 2006 recommendation to screen all children for autism at ages 18 and 24 months. Dawson said that screening leads to earlier referral and diagnosis.

"The current guidelines that encourage universal autism screening offer the best chance for individuals with ASD to reach their full potential and lead productive lives. We should, therefore, stay the course while continuing to advance our knowledge about the full impact of autism screening," she wrote.

An editorial in JAMA Psychiatry criticized the task force as well for its "non-recommendation."

"We hope that the USPSTF statement does not trigger a step backward to later diagnosis, later treatment, and more disparity in services for children with ASD," wrote Dr. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele of the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, Department of Psychiatry, at Columbia University, and Dr. Kelly McGuire of with the Center for Autism and Developmental Disorders, Maine Behavioral Healthcare, in Portland.

Berry told CBS News that autism screening at a typical "well child" checkup does not carry any risks, and does not involve any special procedures -- there's no MRI or blood tests, for example. It requires a brief parent questionnaire that takes five or ten minutes to complete, which is good at identifying children who need further assessment for autism or other developmental conditions that may have similar early symptoms, she said.

Manning-Courtney said, "I've never seen a family resent or regret going through this process. I've seen families appreciate being attentive to these issues. And often these families are relieved."

What's important is that parents make a connection very early with a child who might have autism or other developmental issues, she said. If the screening raises red flags, children would next visit with a specialist like herself.

"We give a combination medical exam, and psychological and speech language evaluation," she explained.

If a child is diagnosed, Manning-Courtney said they can benefit from starting the needed therapies sooner.

"They get resources sooner. Families get everything they can get sooner. At a professional level, its much easier, too, if I know a child from a young age on versus picking them up from age five or seven," she said. "It's better to start the conversation sooner and get children into therapy sooner rather than later."

Finn's mom said she's glad she followed her instincts and pursued answers early, as hard as it was initially to face the knowledge that he had autism. The information led to early interventions for Finn, which she believes benefitted him and their whole family.

On Finn's third birthday, he started full-day preschool where he received autism support classes. Another big step, after weighing the pros and cons with their education and medical experts, was adding medication to his plan. He recently started a very low dose of Risperdal, for anxiety and irritability, said Murphy.

It was a difficult decision, she said, but the right one. "It's been huge for him. Aside from getting his own full-time aide in school, starting the medicine was the best thing for him. It helps him visibly. He's more comfortable in his own skin. It took down a wall. It helps him sleep at night, which was huge for us. He would be up at all hours of the night and that would affect his day. And it doesn't make him sleepy during the day," said Murphy.

Her second son, now two-and-a-half, received a complete evaluation for autism at 13 months, and he did not have any signs of the condition. Her six-month-old daughter hasn't been evaluated for autism yet, but is developing well, Murphy said.

"I know so many other moms who are scared to know. Or they say, 'He'll catch up or grow out of it.' For us, it was so important that we put our parental pride aside and made sure that we were giving Finn the best opportunity for help early on," she said.

For many families, the cost of such treatments can be a difficult burden. Sheletta Brundidge, a Houston mom of four who has two toddlers with autism, said speech and behavioral services add up.

But you can't cut out therapies your child needs, she explained. "If your child has autism, therapy once a week for 30 minutes is not enough," she said.

The Brundidge Family: Shawn, Andrew (9), Sheletta, Brandon (in front), Cameron (on lap). Brandon and Cameron both have autism. Close

Brundidge told CBS News autism can bankrupt even educated, well-off middle class families. But many parents don't realize that there are grants available to families who don't have access to free or affordable autism support services in their communities or health insurance that covers all of their child's needs, she said.

To help other families, Brundidge volunteers her time, providing local seminars for parents who want to learn about autism funding opportunities.

Murphy's son Finn, now almost five, is considered severely autistic. He doesn't talk and is not potty trained. But he now communicates in his own way, his mom said. He uses YouTube videos -- Sesame Street and Disney sing-a-longs -- that he shows her to tell her if he's hot or hungry, for example.

"He has them memorized and can play certain bits of other peoples' conversations to communicate," Murphy said.

Murphy said she's learned a lot by reading blogs by older autistic children who don't speak but can type, which allows them to "talk" online.

"This handful of kids learned how to type and can express everything now. Through them, they have been a window. A lot of these older kids whose blogs I read ask why are researchers not researching that?" Murphy said.

She holds hope that Finn will one day be able to express himself through typing, too.

Finn has also participated in ski boarding camp for kids with autism, horseback riding, and youth soccer, where he gets his own teenage buddy.

"He's gotten a lot better. What I'd say to other parents is not to be scared of the limitations that a diagnosis can imply. But instead to learn to see your child as a really different individual who is just as intelligent and special as every other kid, but just displays and learns and communicate differently," Murphy said.

Murphy feels that all children should be screened for autism at 18 and 24 months.

"While our Finn displays more 'classically autistic' traits that would make it less likely for him to slip through the diagnostic cracks, there are many kids on the spectrum who don't display obvious autistic behavior, or are better at 'passing' as typical. Girls especially. This group of kids could really greatly benefit from early diagnosis. For obvious reasons like access to educational supports and therapies, but also for less obvious and equally important reasons -- like building self esteem and self awareness skills. What a gift it would be to help these kids find their tribe early on."

Summary: As doctors debate universal screening, one mom says, "What a gift it would be to help these kids find their tribe early on"


WASHINGTON, June 27— Justice Thurgood Marshall, a living hero of the civil rights movement and one of the last liberal voices on the Supreme Court, announced his retirement today after 24 years that ended in mounting anger and discouragement as he watched the ascendancy of a conservative-dominated bench.

The 82-year-old Justice, the only black to have served on the Supreme Court, said his resignation would take effect when a successor was confirmed by the Senate. It gives President Bush his second appointment to the Court and will leave it with only one member, Justice Byron R. White, who was named by a Democratic President. Pressure for a Black Nominee

The selection of Justice Marshall's successor will not affect the Court's philosophy as fundamentally as did the appointment of Justice David H. Souter last year, which further tipped the balance away from the old liberal majority and filled the vacancy created by the retirement of the intellectual leader of that coalition, Justice William J. Brennan Jr.

But in making his choice, Mr. Bush will have to balance pressure to cement even further the conservative grip on the Court with equal pressure to appoint a black justice at a time when the President is struggling with Congress over civil rights issues and is anxious to send a message of conciliation to blacks and other critics of his civil rights record.

As was the case with Mr. Bush's appointment of Justice Souter, the question of whether the Supreme Court should overturn the 1973 ruling guaranteeing women the right to abortion is also expected to play a role in the choice of a successor to Justice Marshall. Sense of Isolation

Justice Marshall has always said the Supreme Court was a "lifetime term" from which he would never retire. There has been no dramatic decline evident in his health, despite a fall in a Chicago hotel that hospitalized him last year.

Rather, his resignation was seen as another sign of his growing dissatisfaction and isolation in a court where a solid conservative majority has been eroding some of the principles that Justice Marshall himself helped establish in three decades as a civil rights lawyer. [ Page A13. ]

That sense of frustration was evident today in the Justice's stinging dissent ina death penalty case. "Power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court's decision-making." Justice Marshall wrote.

When asked what kind of Justice he would like to see replace him, Justice Marshall told The Associated Press, "Me."

Asked what he would do now, Justice Marshall said, "Mind my own business," adding that the most important challenge now facing the Court was to "get along without me."

Speculation by Congressional and Administration officials about a successor focused today on black and Hispanic judges, most prominently Judge Clarence Thomas of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a black conservative. Beyond that group, possible candidates included Judges Patrick E. Higginbotham and Edith H. Jones, both of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Texas.

Judge Jones was publicly named as runner-up to Mr. Bush's last nominee, Justice Souter. But Judge Jones may not be able to win Senate confirmation because of her strongly conservative decisions. Warning of 'Bork-Like Fight'

Reaction to Justice Marshall's resignation clearly signaled that the ideological struggle over the Court vacancy would be intense, as it was over President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork in 1987.

Senator Alan Cranston, Democrat of California, warned that if Mr. Bush "picks another right-wing ideologue like Robert Bork, he can expect another Bork-like fight in the United States Senate that led to the nominee's defeat."

Mr. Cranston added: "If he picks another 'stealth' candidate like David Souter, whose views remained a mystery throughout his hearing, I doubt that he will get the same easy ride through the confirmation process. Given the votes that David Souter has cast in his first term, we now ought to know better."

A senior Administration official said Mr. Bush was most likely to appoint a black or Hispanic judge but could turn to someone from the South, a region not represented on the Court. "It's going to be a big fight, no matter who you do," the official said. "Souter was a question mark, but this one, if it is a solid conservative or strict constructionist, would really mean a pretty strong conservative majority on the Court." No Hint of Resignation

Justice Marshall announced the end of a career of nearly six decades in law as a civil rights lawyer, Federal judge, Solicitor General and finally Supreme Court Justice with a terse letter to President Bush that stunned Washington when it was made public about two and a half hours after the Court recessed for the summer.

There had been some speculation that Justice Marshall might retire last week when he sponsored the admission of his son, Thurgood Marshall Jr., to the Supreme Court Bar. But Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist recessed the Court this morning without any hint of Justice Marshall's plans, and the resignation appeared to take even Mr. Bush by surprise.


John Tiffin, whose award-winning foreign reports over four decades helped build and define the success of "60 Minutes" died at home in Rusper, England, last Thursday (March 4) after a long illness. He was 80.

Working almost exclusively with Morley Safer overseas, Tiffin turned out investigations, features and profiles in the "

" London office from 1970 until 2002. Out of this long partnership came the off-beat, usually humorous stories that became Safer's signature. Tiffin's keen vision learned as a cameraman - he filmed and produced much of his early work - combined with Safer's gift with words to create the perfect newsmagazine team. "John Tiffin was a remarkably talented man," said Safer. "He raised the sometimes banal exercise of television news to high art. He had an eye for the perfect shot, that moment that said it all, and yet remained the most modest of men. He was also a perfect friend."

It was Tiffin's eye for the unusual that brought him and Safer together for such memorable "60 Minutes" features as

a whimsical report on the famous and historic Orient Express before it went out of service (1977);

an journey to the mid-ocean Maldives that turned out to be an incredible story (1979);

the home for retired Italian opera singers (1987); and "Tango Finlandia," a look at the odd obsession with tango dancing in Finland (1993).

Perhaps their most prominent story is often credited by the wine industry with popularizing red wine in the U.S. In 1991, Tiffin and Safer collaborated on the "The French Paradox," reporting that the French enjoyed a low incidence of heart disease despite a famously rich diet. Regular consumption of red wine was given credit for this contradiction and bottles of red began flying off the shelves of American liquor stores once the report was seen by the millions of "60 Minutes" viewers.

In the moving "The Music of Auschwitz," Tiffin and Safer profiled Fania Fenelon, a French Jew sent to the infamous camp and forced to perform in a female orchestra that played while prisoners were marched to the gas chambers. The 1978 segment inspired a made-for-television film on the subject, 1980's "Playing for Time," which starred Vanessa Redgrave.

Tiffin's colorful stories brought foreign crime, culture and conflict into the homes of Americans, solidifying "60 Minutes" reputation for fine, unique foreign reporting. He won one of his three Emmy awards for "The Heroin Labs of Marseilles," a 1972 story that was part of a series tracing the drug's route from poppy fields to the streets of the U.S. He won another in 1985 for "The Beeb," which captured a day in the life of the BBC's radio service. "Life and Death in an Irish Town" characterized the sectarian violence in the Northern Irish town of Strabane in 1975, to which Safer and Tiffin returned 20 years later for an update. "Lagos" was a 1983 investigation detailing the corruption in the Nigerian city just before the government was overthrown. He won his last Emmy for "Dusko Tadic" in 1996, a report on a Serbian charged with the torture and murder of Muslims in the Balkan War.

He did several stories on India. In 1985's "Till Death Us Do Part," he and Safer reported on the horrible practice of "bride burning" in the country - the burning alive of a young bride whose dowry was deemed too small - earning a commendation from the American Women in Radio and Television Awards. They continued their coverage with two more stories on the predicament of women in India in 1992 and 1993 with "Ameena," a story about a 13-year-old girl sold to an elderly Saudi man and "The Year of the Woman," which reported how female infants in India are often aborted.

John Alan Gower Tiffin was born in London on February 4, 1930. He was educated at Dulwich College and the Royal College of Art, both in London. He also briefly attended Columbia University in New York between 1959 and 1960 as part of a CBS sabbatical program. While in New York, he met native Philadelphian Wendy Ewer, whom he married and took back to England in 1960.

He joined CBS News in the London Bureau in 1954 as a cameraman and soon found himself filming wars in Cyprus, the Suez and the Belgian Congo. He rose to associate producer and then producer, continuing to shoot the stories he produced. He distinguished himself in 1964 by winning an Overseas Press Club award for best film photography for "Ethiopia: The Lion and the Cross," broadcast on "The Twentieth Century" documentary series.

It was at this time that his long association with Safer began when the young Canadian correspondent joined CBS News in London. They became a team, reporting for "The

with Walter Cronkite." Safer and Tiffin covered Europe, the Middle East and Africa for the next six years and continued together when Safer was asked to join "60 Minutes" in 1970. "He was a great journalist and a great gentleman. He and his close friend Morley Safer had a partnership that lasted through more than four decades - and together they produced some of the most memorable pieces ever to air on 60 Minutes," said the broadcast's Executive Producer Jeff Fager. "He was also a kind and thoughtful friend and colleague to many of us at CBS News and we will miss him."

Tiffin is survived by his wife, Wendy; three children: George, Edward and Martha Tiffin; and three grandchildren. A funeral in England will be held on March 16.

Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved.

Summary: Produced Stories With Correspondent Morley Safer


Attorney General Loretta Lynch intends to accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and federal agents make in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, a Justice Department official said Friday.

“The Attorney General expects to receive and accept the determinations and findings of the Department’s career prosecutors and investigators, as well as the FBI Director,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing probe.

Lynch was expected to discuss the matter further at a summit Friday in Aspen, Colorado.

This revelation comes amid a controversy surrounding an impromptu private discussion that Lynch had aboard her plane on the tarmac at a Phoenix airport on Monday with Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. That get-together has been criticized as inappropriate by Republicans and some Democrats at a time when the Justice Department has been investigating whether classified information was mishandled through Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

Lynch told reporters that she did and Bill Clinton did not discuss the email investigation during the encounter.

The announcement also appeared intended to assuage concerns, particularly among Republicans, that Lynch — a Democratic appointee — might overrule recommendations from the agents and prosecutors who have worked on the case. Disputes on charging decisions between the FBI and the Justice Department are not uncommon, particularly in national security cases, though many legal experts see any criminal prosecution in this matter as exceedingly unlikely.

Decisions on whether to charge anyone in the case will be made by “career prosecutors and investigators who have been handling this matter since its inception” and reviewed by senior lawyers at the department and the FBI director, and Lynch will then accept whatever recommendation comes, the official said.

Federal officials have already interviewed top Clinton aides including Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin. They have not yet spoken with Clinton herself.

It’s not known when the investigation will conclude. FBI Director James Comey has repeatedly said that there is no specific timeline for wrapping it up.

Summary: After her private meeting with Bill Clinton


Snow has been forecast for the Adelaide Hills and South Australia's mid-north as severe weather moves across the state.

Up to 80mm of rain is also expected in the hills by Tuesday afternoon, with flooding a possibility.

The bureau of meteorology says very cold conditions are forecast for southern parts of the state with Adelaide tipped to have a top of just 11C.

Wind gusts in excess of 90km/h are also possible, prompting a severe weather warning for the Eyre Peninsula, Yorke Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, the Mt Lofty Ranges and the southeast.

On Monday, a 71-year-old man was killed when he was crushed by a falling tree at Tungkillo, in the Adelaide Hills.

Strong winds on Sunday night and into Monday brought down dozens of trees, some onto parked cars and buildings, others across roads.

Thousands of properties were also left without power and SA Power Networks said some could expect a lengthy period before services were restored.

Summary: Snow has been forecast for the Adelaide Hills and the mid-north as severe weather moves through South Australia.


CLEVELAND—Melania Trump said her husband had turned an “unlikely campaign into a movement” and called for the Republican Party to come together behind Donald Trump after a heated primary.

“The primary season and its toughness is behind us. Let’s all come together in a national campaign like no other,” said Mrs. Trump during her 15-minute address...

Summary: Melania Trump talks about her husband’s toughness during the first night of the Republican National Convention, predicting the coming contest will be filled with “excitement and drama.”


Sina, once a star of the Chinese Internet, has lost its shine. But it remains one of the sector’s best value plays.

Sina’s market capitalization, at around $3.5 billion after accounting for the recent share issuance to its chief executive, is tiny relative to giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. But it still occupies an important position in China’s online landscape, as majority owner of the Twitter-like microblog Weibo, and operator...

Summary: Chinese Internet company Sina’s prospects could improve further if it deepens its relationship with Alibaba.


• Pendleton falls in first big race

They will have fallen off at Fakenham, been unseated at Uttoxeter and kicked in the ribs at Kelso. They will have been rollocked by trainers for going too soon and for leaving their run too late. Put it this way. The Telegraph’s racing correspondent, Marcus Armytage, won the Grand National as an amateur on Mr Frisk. To him riding was not a sudden fancy. It was a lifetime’s challenge.

Pendleton’s problem is that she is going straight in at the top. The Foxhunter Chase will sound to the uninitiated like a lark for gadabout country types squeezed into the show; but it requires a level of experience in race riding that Pendleton cannot hope to have. Experience of delivering a horse at a fence, sensing danger and generally managing the unpredictable creature carrying her up and down dale.

Pendleton wants to switch over from a successful cycling career

The whole problem with her commendable and fascinating switch of sports is that it has mutated into some kind of race against time. Can she be ready for Cheltenham? Can she learn quickly enough from her fall at Fakenham last Friday to justify a berth alongside the best of the trade? Well, how about giving her another year. What, exactly, is the hurry?

She sounds ready to wait, if necessary, but a wave of curiosity is carrying her too fast to a dangerous place. “If it’s not meant to be this year, it’s not meant to be,” she says. Yet she also runs the risk of retreating into a siege position, which would feed her determination but distort her thinking. “I always go by the one in five rule,” she says. “That is, one in five people will never like you but one in five may love you.”

• The failed attempts to switch sports

This is the Olympian in her speaking. The gold medallist. The competitor. But “likes” and “loves” have nothing to do with it. Only a troll would want her to fail. The aim, surely, is to accord National Hunt racing the proper respect by acknowledging how hard it is and step back from the racing-against-the-clock element of her development.

Already she is a wonderful advert for jump jockeys. She is showing how much practice and perseverance it takes to convert recreational riding into piloting round Cheltenham. Or even Fakenham, where she was bumped out of the saddle, prompting the most graceful of all National Hunt riders, John Francome, to say: “She wants saving from herself. I’ve never met her, she seems a lovely girl but she can’t ride and she’s an accident waiting to happen. She could have fallen off at any fence. It’s not just about Cheltenham, she could come off on a Sunday afternoon at a point to point. She wants stopping before she hurts herself.”

Leaving aside the “lovely girl” bit, which bears no relevance, Francome was expressing a common view, not as a dismissal of her potential but an assessment of where she is now. Steve Smith Eccles, another legend and now a riding coach, said she was “too loose in the saddle.”

Switching sports is no lifestyle choice, as anyone who saw Freddie Flintoff try to box will testify. Many years ago the job took me to Birmingham, Alabama, to watch Michael Jordan play for a minor league baseball side as part of his preparation for the major leagues. Straight away the senses registered the incongruities. Jordan, the all-time greatest basketball star, looked all wrong in his new vocation. He had wandered into the wrong movie. Soon he was back at the hoops.

There are exceptions: Sonny Bill Williams in rugby union, rugby league and boxing, Rebecca Romero in rowing, cycling and triathlon. But Pendleton is making a grander leap, from a two-wheeled machine to half a ton of horse with huge obstacles to jump. So she is entitled to see this as a long-term mission, not a publicity exercise or a mad dash with excitable sponsors in tow.

The hope is that one day she will sail round Cheltenham; clear every fence and hear the crowd’s roar rebound off Cleeve Hill on some sunny spring afternoon. To postpone that dream is only to make it more feasible.

The phrase “transparent voting booths” may have caught your eye in this parodic Fifa presidential race. They are being demanded by Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, who is turning into the relative transparency candidate in a contest beset by all the old conniving.

Ali, left, wants to succeed Blatter, right, as Fifa president

Ali has asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to rule on his proposal that see-through booths be used for Friday’s vote. Why? Because the Prince wants to ensure that delegates refrain from photographing their ballot papers. Why would they do that? To stop delegates coming under pressure from interested parties to prove how they voted.

• Everything you need to know on the Fifa election

Fifa argue that it is sufficient for delegates to surrender their mobile phones before ticking a box. Under the governing body’s statutes, voting is secret, which offers all sorts of possibilities for the electorate to say one thing to a candidate and do another. Delegates are even calling Sepp Blatter for advice/instructions on how to vote.

So while the football-loving masses are out there awaiting the fate of the World Cup, not to mention the soul of the game, we appear to be stuck at the square-one of trust, manipulation and electoral probity. And people actually think Fifa can be saved.

Summary: Olympic cycling champion is attempting to make a difficult sporting transition   - she has come in for criticism and needs to take her time with it


was in no mood to celebrate the conviction of the man who killed his stepson when he arrived Thursday at LAX.

was just convicted of homicide for recklessly jet skiing. 11-year-old

was riding an inner tube when he was struck by the jet ski and killed. Usher, who was married to

, lived with the boy for several years and considered him his stepson.

Usher -- who has been in a nasty, ongoing legal fight with Tameka -- had words of sympathy for her and Kile's biological dad.

Summary: Usher was in no mood to celebrate the conviction of the man who killed his stepson when he arrived Thursday at LAX.Jeffrey Hubbard was just convicted of…


How much will Americans pay to avoid annoying their neighbors?

Briggs & Stratton Corp. hopes they will cough up roughly $40 to $50 extra for a quieter lawn mower. The Milwaukee-based company this spring is introducing a mower engine that it said is 64% less noisy than standard versions.

So far, this quieter engine is available only...

Summary: How much will Americans pay to avoid annoying their neighbors? Briggs & Stratton hopes they will cough up roughly $40 to $50 extra for a quieter lawn mower, and rival engine maker Kohler also has made its motors quieter. But it isn't clear that many people will pay a premium for less noise.


The winter of 2015/16 was a historic one for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) as it celebrated half a century. To mark the occasion a major new lift, the Teton high-speed quad chair, was built. Plus a new restaurant, the Piste Mountain Bistro, joined the recently opened Off-Piste Market gourmet grab-and-go eatery in the lower level of the Rendezvous Lodge, at the top of the Bridger Gondola.

Until the mid-80s, few people had heard of what is now the cult ski area of Jackson Hole. Tucked into the top left-hand corner of Wyoming, with a Teton mountain range backdrop, it is now one of North America's foremost resorts. Over the last decade, Jackson Hole has invested heavily in new facilities, lifts and terrain upgrades aimed at intermediates.

Originally named Jackson's Hole after the Virginian trapper David Edward Jackson, the valley in which the resort is found is 60 miles long and 15 miles wide, running from Hoback Junction in the south to Jackson Lake and Togwotee Pass in the north. It’s remote and wild, with a rich variety of wildlife (including elk, moose, coyotes, the odd wolf and even bald eagles).

Confusingly, the ski area of Jackson Hole does not share its name with its local resort, Teton Village, or the cowboy town of Jackson, 12 miles to the south east – only the valley, Jackson Hole. When Paul McCollister opened the ski area in 1965, he named it Jackson Hole – now Jackson Hole Mountain Resort – but it's usually referred to by skiers and snowboarders simply as Jackson.

Teton Village is a horseshoe-shaped community of shops, lodgings and resort admin offices planted snugly at the base of the ski area, alongside the resort’s iconic Tram (the American name for a cable car) – where you might occasionally see a wandering moose – and the more recently constructed Bridger Gondola. The USA has very few cable cars, and the Tram was installed by resort founder Paul McCollister to help produce a European atmosphere.

It's a charming little resort, rather dwarfed by the huge, slopeside Four Seasons’ Hotel. You can get to pretty much everywhere on foot and there’s everything you could need for your holiday in the village – and enough restaurants to enable you to try a different one each night.

For the last 10 years the ski area has averaged 11m of snow each winter, though like any other resort, it does inevitably experience the occasional poor snow year. In the 2007/08 season, the resort had an all-time record 15m of snowfall combined with a then record number of visits.

A new electronic gate system was installed last season to get skiers and snowboarders on to the slopes faster and with less hassle. Once guests have purchased a reusable J Card – that operates the lift turnstyles automatically – they can reload it online at any time, eliminating waiting in line.

Other on-mountain improvements include re-routing and widening the South Pass Traverse between the Casper Restaurant and Apres Vous mountain to make it easier and more pleasant to negotiate. A new Crags chairlift was installed in the summer of 2015, and recently the resort spent nearly $6 million on the installation of the Casper high-speed detachable quad – a boost for accessing intermediate terrain.

It's no surprise with the resort's coming of age over the last quarter of a century that some say Jackson Hole is now North America's top resort.

Nearest airport: Jackson Hole, 30 minutes (32km); there are no direct UK flights, Britons can fly into Denver and catch a short connecting flight on to Jackson Hole.

Jackson Hole Alltrans (jacksonholealltrans.com) runs Jackson Hole Express, which provides a daily shuttle service to/from Jackson Hole, Idaho Falls, Pocatello and Salt Lake City. Advance Reservations are highly recommended.

Summary: Our Insider's Guides offer the lowdown on the world's finest resorts from the people who know them from peak to pub to pillow. Here, Arnie Wilson offers a guide to Jackson Hole, Wyoming


Tony Blair said his conversion to Catholicism had been driven by his wife, Cherie, adding that it "felt right" and "is now where my heart is".

The former prime minister, who now runs the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, switched from the Anglican church to Catholicism soon after leaving Downing Street two years ago. His wife and children were already Catholic.

He told the Communion and Liberation meeting in the Italian resort of Rimini yesterday: "Ever since I began preparations to become a Catholic, I felt I was coming home ... this is now where my heart is, where I know I belong."

Blair said he was "humbled" to make a speech to such eminent delegates because he was a "very new entrant" to the Catholic church.

In off-the-cuff remarks reported by the London Evening Standard, he added: "Frankly, this all began with my wife. I began to go to mass and we went together. We could have gone to the Anglican or Catholic church – guess who won?

"As time went on, I had been going to mass for a long time ... it's difficult to find the right words. I felt this was right for me. There was something, not just about the doctrine of the church, but of the universal nature of the Catholic church."

Blair, now also a Middle East quartet envoy, used his speech to tell delegates that it was always a "pleasure" to be in Italy.

"It is here in this country that I have spent many happy times, and where, 30 years ago, almost to the day, I proposed to my wife," he said.

He also spoke of his time as prime minister and, before that, leader of the opposition.

"As prime minister of the UK for 10 years, but also as leader of the Labour party for 13, during which time I reformed its constitution precisely around the relationship between the individual and the state, I learned many things," he said.

"I began hoping to please all of the people all of the time, and ended wondering if I was pleasing any of the people any of the time. But that's another story."

Blair reportedly received a standing ovation for his wide-ranging speech, which also included references to past political summits.

"I remember when we put climate change and global poverty on the G8 agenda in Gleneagles in 2005, there was considerable disquiet amongst the politicians, worried about the demands made on them," he said.

"But their burden was lightened by the Christian church giving such solid and clear support.

"In seeking this path of truth, lit by God's love and paved by God's grace, the church can be the insistent spiritual voice that makes globalisation our servant, not our master."

Summary: Former PM tells Italian audience that church can make globalisation 'our servant, not our master, lit by God's love and paved by God's grace'


The stock market and investors have gotten fat and happy. And that’s a problem.

That’s according to a Sunday note to clients from a team of Goldman Sachs gs analysts, who downgraded their three month outlook on equities to “Underweight”—Wall Street’s cushioned way of saying “Sell.”

Goldman’s cautious call may seem odd now. In the past few week, investors have tamed their Brexit-related economic fears, and stocks and markets have roared back after their initial plunge. The reason, in part: Everyone is anticipating lower interest rates, and therefore are willing to put their money in riskier assets, the Goldman analysts, led by Christian Mueller-Glissmann, wrote.

As a result, investors have gone on a hunt for higher yields and returns, boosting stock markets up to new highs. Cyclical stocks, those that are dependent on the ups and downs of the general economy, are outperforming stocks that are not—defensive stocks. Bonds and “safe haven” assets such as gold have conversely begun to sell off.

But, Goldman says, in this search for higher yields, investors are discounting some things, namely that company earnings are still poor, while the macro economic environment doesn’t seem to be backing the equity rally.

“We think this reversal in positioning increases the likelihood of an equity pullback given that our fundamental view has not changed: Valuations still appear high and we still expect poor earnings growth across regions,” the team of analysts wrote. “In our view, equities remain in their ‘fat and flat’ range and are now just near the upper end. As a result, we downgrade equities to Underweight in our 3-month asset allocation.”

The Goldman team also said they were concerned about “the sustainability of stimulus-led growth in China, global policy uncertainty (and in Europe in particular), dovish central bank expectations, and heightened prospects of unknown shocks (e.g. Turkey recently).”

Summary: They are buying the wrong kinds of stocks.


Whatever your horticultural influence, bring a touch of the exotic to your outdoor space – and win a £1,000 gardening gift card from B&Q

It may be a quintessentially-British pastime, but gardening is one of the few diversions which allows green-fingered enthusiasts to take the essence of the world’s most exotic locations – and bring them into the comfort of their own homes.

Whether you’re influenced by the intricacies of Kyoto’s Ryōan-ji Zen rock garden or are swept off your feet by the romance of Marrakech’s Jardin Majorelle, you too can bring a touch of the exotic to your outdoor space – and allow the transformation to transport you to a far-off location.

With this in mind, the Telegraph partners with B&Q to bring you the latest in garden inspiration, from emerging trends and expert advice to new tricks and old favourites.

To help you get started on your own garden quest, B&Q are giving one lucky winner a £1,000 gift card to spend in store. Simply fill out your details below by midnight on Sunday 31 July.

Check out B&Q Gardening and Outdoor section here »

Summary: Whatever your gardening influence, bring a touch of the exotic to your outdoor space


Joe Rosenthal’s photograph, shot on Feb. 23, 1945, has become a symbol: As U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima, the Associated Press photographer was at the ready, capturing the moment that would come to define America’s victorious stand in World War II.

The image has since entered the subconscious of millions of Americans — as TIME reported in 1945, it was already “easily the most widely printed photograph of World War II,” — and its iconic status has spawned countless homages, most famously at Ground Zero in the hours following the 9/11 attacks.

But the power of Rosenthal’s photograph also resides in its viewers’ unwavering reverence for the Star-Spangled Banner, whose use is regulated by the United States Flag Code — for example, the flag should never be displayed with the union down, the flag should never be used to cover a ceiling and it should never touch ground. And Rosenthal’s photograph is not the only picture of the flag to have achieved iconic status, starting with Neil Armstrong’s photograph of his colleague, Buzz Aldrin, standing next to the American banner on the Moon.

From Gordon Parks’ celebrated American Gothic image, which exposed the reality of racism in America, to Mitch Epstein’s captivating photograph of a dry-cleaned flag, TIME LightBox celebrates America’s Independence Day with some of the most iconic and original images of the American flag.

Olivier Laurent is the editor of TIME LightBox. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @olivierclaurent

Summary: From Gordon Parks' celebrated 'American Gothic' image to Neil Armstrong's moon shot


As well as allowing ladies to play on whatever day they want, clubs are also having to admit women to “men only” bars and restaurants in clubhouses, and some are abolishing the traditional post of club captain. Others are even planning to scrap “husband and wife” contests, replacing them with “mixed competitions” in which civil partners can also compete.

Kirstie Thirde, from the English Golf Partnership which incorporates governing and professional bodies, said many women were unhappy that they must now have the same unrestricted membership terms as men, meaning that they lost their ladies’ discount.

Mrs Thirde backed the Act but admitted: “Many golf club ladies don’t want equality.

“All they feel the Equality Act does is increase their fees and allow them access to the course at weekends, which they really don’t need.

“I visit an awful lot of clubs talking about the equality issue, and they will say to you 'women don’t want this.’ ”

Many women golfers are over 50 and retired. She said: “They play during the week. They don’t need access to the course at the weekend, so why would somebody pay for something they don’t want?”

Chris Jones, editor of Golf World magazine, said he too had heard women golfers complaining about the Act. “A lot of them are on fixed incomes and can’t justify an extra £40 a month for golf club membership.

“Most women don’t want to play with us men. They don’t want to endure the bravado, the trying to play like Tiger Woods, and the swearing, stamping and snapping of golf clubs that ensues. Ladies’ day is their day when they can get away from us.”

At some clubs, the post of club captain – once the preserve of men only – has been scrapped in favour of separate ladies’ and men’s captains. A 70-year-old honorary secretary at one club, who asked not to be named, regretted the change.

“To be club captain is one of the highest honours. These people that come up with the legislation don’t understand the traditions of this place.”

Some clubs have introduced changes with reluctance. Lenzie Golf Club, near Glasgow, announced that “veteran ladies” would now be expected to pay the same as “veteran gents”.

However, Robert Chalmers, the club captain, added: “I hope members will appreciate the changes are to be made as the result of legislation which we must comply with and not of our own initiation.”

A newsletter from Northwood Golf Club in Middlesex worried that “the new law bans the candidacy of a captain only being available to men. There’ll be a few harrumphs about this at the club bar, I am sure.”

The move was voted through with a big majority, but the club is now grappling with the thornier issue of whether it can still allow husband and wife discounts, or whether the average couple will have to pay an extra £200 in fees.

In Northwood’s newsletter, Steve Derbyshire, the club’s general manager, writes that “husband and wife competitions are discriminatory and need to be 'mixed competitions’ in future, taking into account civil partnerships as well as gender reassignment and sexual orientation issues”.

Alison Root, 43, the editor of Women & Golf magazine and a regular player, admitted: “To be honest, a lot of women don’t want change. They play during the week. They don’t care what happens on Saturdays. If you’re happy with your lot, why change?”

Objections to the Act among female golfers surprised Barry Johnston, compiler of the book The Wit of Golf. “I am sure they don’t want to go back to the bad old days,” he said.

“That’s when you heard stories about the ladies sitting on the veranda who were appalled by swearing from so-called gentlemen on the 18th hole. When the ladies complained, the committee took action – by banning ladies from the veranda.”

Summary: The Equality Act has given women more rights in golf clubs – but many lady   golfers have been left out of pocket and out of sorts.


Indeed, the big question now facing Sea The Stars is how will he take to his new role? A completely different question to those asked of him on the track. Will he prove fertile, capable of serving 100 to 130 mares (each at a predicted fee of around €75,000). There have been high profile failures, George Washington and El Gran Senor being among the most notable, so nothing is guaranteed.

Over the years, the formula for working out a stallion's potential earnings has been modified. Currently, the popular modern sire can expect a book of between 120 and 150 mares per covering season and the most widely-used calculation is based on four active years. Then there is the addition of an annual season in the Southern Hemisphere, where another band of mares will be served.

Over the past two decades, Sadler's Wells proved himself the most successful commercial sire ever. His stud fee was listed as 'private', but was estimated to be in excess of £200,000 in his prime. His sire, Northern Dancer, stood for a staggering $500,000 in his final season.

In today's tough financial climate, his descendants carry on the family name, for both racecourse performance and popularity. The three most successful stallions are Galileo (believed to stand for €150,000), Danehill Dancer and Montjeu (both for between an estimated €80,000 and €100,000).

Sea The Stars is an extremely attractive stallion proposition, yet he is still unproven. He has the looks, the pedigree (Galileo is his half-brother), the temperament, and the racecourse performance.

At present, Sheikh Mohammed and his Darley operation are vying with the Irish National Stud for the privilege of standing Sea The Stars. The Tsui family, the colt's owners, are still in negotiation with those interested. Potential buyers are few, which must limit the price.

It is highly unlikely that Coolmore Stud, one of the world's major bloodstock operations, will become involved in a bidding war. Coolmore broke their association with the Tsui family some while ago and, despite seeing Sea The Stars beat their colts in four major races this year, they are expected to look to Rip Van Winkle.

So, brilliant racehorse though he was. Sea The Stars may not break any more records.

Summary: Sea The Stars is extremely fashionable at present, but will he be in three   years? That is the question potential purchasers must ask themselves.


RÍO DE JANEIRO — Uno de los centros deportivos más insólitos del mundo es un edificio enorme de color celeste en un callejón fangoso de Chacrinha, una favela en la orilla occidental de Río de Janeiro. Adentro hay cuatro relucientes canchas de bádminton de tamaño oficial, un deporte del que hasta hace poco solo algunos brasileños habían oído hablar, y mucho menos habían jugado.

Este es el Centro Miratus: en una tarde cualquiera unos 200 niños y niñas del lugar estarán entrenando allí, vestidos con camisetas idénticas de color amarillo con verde. Pero para el mejor de todos, Ygor Coelho de Oliveira —de 19 años—, no solo es su cancha, también es su hogar. O, más bien, las canchas y su casa son parte de la misma estructura: su padre Sebastião, profesor de educación física y carpintero autodidacta, construyó ambas con sus propias manos. Si uno se asoma por la ventana del segundo piso de la casa y mira hacia abajo, se pueden ver las canchas.

“Quería aprovechar la vista y ver todo lo que sucedía”, dijo Sebastião de Oliveira. “Para mí es como ver televisión”.

Su hijo es delgado, alegre y está a punto de hacer historia: en los próximos días, él y otra jugadora del Centro Miratus, una mujer de 20 años llamada Lohaynny Vicente, serán los primeros jugadores brasileños de bádminton en estar en unos juegos olímpicos. Actualmente Oliveira es el número 62 del mundo, mientras Vicente es la número 72, lo cual es impresionante si se considera lo difícil que es mejorar las técnicas sin competir regularmente con una comunidad de jugadores superiores.

Por otro lado, los grupos de hombres y mujeres que participan en las olimpiadas están compuestos, cada uno, por solo 38 atletas. Estos dos brasileños se han ganado la posibilidad de entrar a la competencia más prestigiosa del deporte como cortesía del beneficio poco conocido de ser el anfitrión de los juegos olímpicos: se reservan lugares para los atletas del país anfitrión siempre y cuando sean razonablemente competitivos. Tanto De Oliveira como Vicente alcanzan ese nivel, pero decir que pelearán por una medalla sería generoso. Esto los convierte en parte de un subgrupo inusual de personas que ahora los medios brasileños celebran: atletas con historias inspiradoras que definitivamente van a perder.

“No queremos humillar a nadie”, dijo João Pedro Paes Leme, director deportivo de Rede Globo, la cadena de televisión más grande de Brasil. “Pero al mismo tiempo queremos señalar a la gente que está haciendo el mejor esfuerzo de su vida para estar aquí. Incluso ellos saben que no ganarán una medalla. Su medalla es competir en la primera ronda. Y algunas de sus historias son más populares entre los televidentes que las de los medallistas de oro”.

Enfocarse en personas como de Oliveira es una cuestión matemática. La delegación olímpica del país es de 450 atletas y el Comité Olímpico de Brasil se ha puesto como meta ganar entre 25 y 30 medallas. Si Globo se enfocara solo en los ganadores, tendría una cobertura de menos del 10 por ciento de los participantes brasileños. Así que, además de presentar héroes olímpicos y competidores locales, Globo transmite historias que podrían llamarse “Narrativas inspiradoras de derrotas inminentes”.

Pero detrás de estas historias también hay tesoros escondidos. Si nunca hubiéramos conocido a Ygor de Oliveira, nunca hubiésemos conocido a su padre, quien ha convertido un sueño muy peculiar en realidad a través de la pura fuerza de voluntad.

CreditDado Galdieri para The New York Times

El hombre detrás de “el proyecto”

Sebastião Dias de Oliveira tiene 51 años y se parece a Danny Glover en sus días de Arma Mortal, pero sin el bigote. Es el arquitecto, el albañil y el entrenador de Miratus, por lo que normalmente hay niños que lo siguen y él los dirige a través de una mezcla de gritos, gestos y carisma. Teniendo en cuenta que es el cerebro y el músculo detrás de esta aventura quijotesca, de Oliveira da la impresión de ser un hombre sorprendentemente razonable, sobre todo cuando describe el comienzo de lo que llama “el proyecto”.

Sebastião se crio en un orfanato de Río y veía a su madre durante las vacaciones, cuando los dos se dedicaban a buscar material reciclable en el que entonces era el basurero más grande del mundo. (Ese vertedero, Gramacho, fue escenario para el documental Waste Land de 2010, y desde entonces ha cerrado). Muchos años después, en 1998, un colega del bachillerato donde enseñaba de Oliveira le regaló una raqueta de bádminton que compró en un viaje a Italia.

“Le pregunté: ‘¿Es para tenis? Una pelota podría atravesarla’”, recordó de Oliveira, sentado en la cafetería que le agregó hace poco al centro.

No se usa una pelota, le explicó su amigo. Se usa un “volante”. Vamos a probarlas.

Sin una red, la pareja voleó una y otra vez en la playa. De Oliveira estaba embelesado.

“El deporte me eligió”, dijo. “Supe de inmediato qué debía hacer con el proyecto”.

Hasta ese momento el proyecto era una piscina, para la cual estaba excavando al lado de su casa. Como muchas favelas, Chacrinha es una villa que surgió de la nada y que está fuera del mapa, al mismo tiempo amigable y peligrosa. La piscina iba a ser un centro comunitario y un espacio para niños cuyas primeras oportunidades habían llegado de mano de narcotraficantes que buscaban nuevos reclutas.

De Oliveira dejó de trabajar en la piscina y comenzó a hacer una cancha de bádminton con las herramientas que iba encontrando. Todos, incluida su esposa, pensaron que el concepto era ridículo. ¿Bádminton? ¿En una favela? Solo había unas cuantas canchas en el país, la mayoría en lugares lujosos, como los clubes campestres.

Pero de Oliveira quería lograr, sin ninguna ayuda, el único semillero para talentos de bádminton en Brasil. Comenzó con una cancha sencilla de asfalto en el exterior, donde los niños jugaban descalzos. Muchos más empezaron a llegar y así comenzó el trabajo de 17 años de construir una instalación bajo techo en constante expansión.

“Todo el dinero que he ganado en la vida está en este centro”, dijo de Oliveira. “Lo construí con mi dinero, mi sudor, mi sangre”.

Aunque sí le ayudaron un poco. Después de que empezaron a aparecer algunos artículos sobre su proyecto en los medios brasileños, un suizo visitó el centro y después envió volantes, ropa y raquetas. Algunas agencias no gubernamentales enviaron materiales de construcción. En 2007, de Oliveira recordó sus habilidades de reciclador para recolectar materiales que se descartaron después de los Juegos Panamericanos de Río. Su casa fue un sitio de construcción durante años.

“Mi familia pasó por muchas cosas mientras construía este centro”, agregó. “El piso de la casa parecía la calle”.

La recompensa, a través de los títulos, llegó en 2006. Desde entonces, los jugadores de Miratus han ganado 68 medallas en los campeonatos de menores panamericanos, 22 de oro y más de 30 títulos de los Juegos Sudamericanos de la Juventud.

¿Cómo pudo enseñar de Oliveira un deporte que conoció por primera vez como adulto? Cuando se lo pregunté hizo una pausa y después se paró. Levantó un pie y después lo bajó. Después levantó el otro y lo bajó. Después lo repitió, muy despacio.

“¿Qué estoy haciendo ahora?”, preguntó.

¿Levantar y bajar los pies?

“En realidad”, dijo, “estoy bailando samba. Eso es el primer nivel. Este es el segundo”.

Movió los pies un poco más rápido.

“Este es el nivel tres”, dijo. Sus zapatos deportivos eran una mancha borrosa.

“En un comienzo conseguí cuerdas, pero a los niños no les gustaban, así que decidí que les enseñaría a jugar bádminton por medio de algo que yo conocía y ellos también: la samba”.

En ese momento bajó por las escaleras de la cafetería hacia las canchas. Había cerca de 50 niños. En silencio se apiñaron alrededor de él y se ubicaron en columnas con la misma distancia a cada lado de las redes, tres columnas por cancha. Había un gran altavoz en el piso y pronto comenzó la música: un ritmo lento de samba con una melodía que había escrito de Oliveira, el maestro de la autosuficiencia.

Con raquetas en la mano, los niños comenzaron a marchar con el ritmo sin moverse de su lugar. El sonido de un silbato era la señal de cambio. Repetían al unísono un ejercicio diferente y más complejo: daban pasos de lado a lado y simulaban remates sobre la cabeza, se estiraban hacia adelante y golpeaban de revés, y así sucesivamente.

La secuencia de 20 minutos culminó con los niños lanzando los volantes sobre la red a alguien más que los atraparía, esperaría el ritmo indicado y después los lanzaría de regreso. Los únicos sonidos eran los zumbidos de los volantes que hacían arcos idénticos, y una música instrumental lenta y delicada de piano y batería. Era un espectáculo de precisión militar, belleza incomparable y rasgos conmovedores. Algunos niños usaban sandalias y todos venían de un lugar muy lejano de las clases media y alta de Brasil, un país en el que crecer en una favela es un antecedente tan permanente como un tatuaje. Sin embargo, ahí estaban: bailando, lanzando y mejorando en un entorno que los impulsó a aspirar a otra cosa.

“Mi sueño es que alguien que crezca en una favela y entrene en una favela pueda inspirar a otros chicos de las favelas”, agregó de Oliveira. “Quiero resaltar el éxito en lugar del crimen”.

De Oliveira sabe que la mejor oportunidad para alcanzar este sueño ahora se encuentra en las manos ágiles de su hijo, quien tiene una sonrisa ancha y un remate elevado impresionante. La faceta olímpica de Ygor, junto con su irresistible condición de local, lo han convertido en el rostro de Miratus, y Globo lo ha visitado para filmarlo en varias ocasiones.

Aunque es estudiante de la escuela de bádminton con samba, aprendió mucho de la mecánica del juego —lo que se hace arriba de la cintura, como la volea— de videos de superestrellas del deporte que vio en YouTube. Su único roce constante con competidores fuertes fue en 2014, cuando pasó tres meses en Dinamarca, una potencia del juego, con dinero que ganó en un torneo.

“Empecé aquí”, dijo sobre su estancia en Dinamarca, y señaló su nivel de habilidad colocando una mano a la altura del hombro. Entonces la mano se disparó sobre la cabeza. “Y terminé aquí”.

Ygor se enfrentará a atletas de países como China, donde la cantera de talentos es 100 millones de veces más fuerte y el gobierno respalda generosamente el entrenamiento, la vivienda y la alimentación de sus mejores jugadores. Ygor de Oliveira parece estar demasiado enamorado de estas luminarias como para envidiarlas. En un evento de prueba reciente que se hizo en Río conoció a Lin Dan, tal vez el mejor jugador de bádminton en la historia, quien pronto competirá por su tercera medalla de oro consecutiva en juegos olímpicos.

“Alguien le enseñó a desearme ‘feliz cumpleaños’ en portugués”, dijo de Oliveira con una sonrisa brillante. “Fue un productor de Globo, en realidad. Y me tomé una foto con él”.

Hay un competidor de acero debajo de ese exterior embelesado, y de Oliveira ha sorprendido a muchos de sus oponentes mejor clasificados. Nadie parece haberle explicado que tan solo participar en los juegos es un triunfo, y él tiene claro que quiere llegar a los cuartos de final. Pero si no lo logra en estas olimpiadas, tiene la suficiente juventud y confianza para saber que habrá otras oportunidades.

Por otro lado, dijo, es un favorito de su país, lo cual significa que habrá muchos fanáticos en Río que irán a apoyarlo. Nunca se sabe. O, como él lo dice, en palabras que tal vez escuchó de su padre: “Todo es posible”.

Summary: Ygor Coelho de Oliveira, el primer jugador olímpico de bádminton de Brasil, empezó en una cancha que su padre construyó con sus propias manos en una favela. Este es el Centro Miratus, donde se desafían los límites de lo posible.


More than 100 studios, galleries, barns and churches across Devon display works by local artists. Visitors can buy art direct from the creator, watch demonstrations and take part in practical classes. Admission: free Contact: devonartistnetwork.co.uk

Maypole dancing, bale tossing, terrier racing and vintage machinery are some of the big draws at this historic agricultural show, which inspired the traditional folk song Widecombe Fair. Admission: free Contact: widecombefair.com

The anniversary of the birth of Agatha Christie is celebrated with a week-long programme of events in Torquay, the crime writer’s hometown. Highlights include talks by well-known crime writers, workshops for budding authors, murder mystery parties and visits to Greenway, Christie’s holiday home. Admission: from £5 Contact: 01803 211211; agathachristiefestival.com

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of this classical music festival, 35 performances will be held in churches across Dartmoor and Exmoor, along with a fully-staged performance of the opera of Tarka the Otter in Exeter Cathedral. Admission: from £8 Contact: 01643 831006; thetwomoorsfestival.com

Wander the cobbled alleyways of this beautiful harbour town grazing from stalls selling local produce, and brush up on your culinary skills at cookery demonstrations and food-and-wine pairing events by big-name chefs. Admission: free to enter the town; demonstrations start from £5 Contact: dartmouthfoodfestival.com

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Summary: Read our insider’s guide to the best festivals and events in Devon, as recommended by Telegraph Travel. Find great photos, event prices and contact details.


Senator Bernie Sanders is holding out hope that a strong showing at the Clark County convention in Nevada over the weekend could help him top Hillary Clinton in the race for the state’s delegates.

Mrs. Clinton beat Mr. Sanders in the Democratic caucuses in Nevada in February, garnering an estimated 20 delegates to his 15. But the hunt for delegates does not end there. On Saturday Mr. Sanders’s campaign managed to mobilize more delegates to the convention in Nevada’s largest county, likely narrowing his delegate deficit and potentially overtaking her.

Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager, said that the campaign had narrowed the gap by at least four net delegates and potentially won as many as eight delegates. The Sanders campaign said that it drew nearly 3,000 delegates to the convention while the Clinton campaign had about 2,300.

Other counties in Nevada are also holding such conventions ahead of the state convention in May.

“It was a pretty big day for us,” Mr. Weaver said in an interview. “It’s testament to the level of organization we have on the ground and frankly the lack of enthusiasm on the other side.”

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, attributed the tepid turnout to widespread confusion among her supporters about when they needed to show up.

Among grave issues affecting County convention results in NV: notice went out to delegates wrongly saying they didn't need to show up today

— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) April 3, 2016

Summary: Mr. Sanders is holding out hope that a strong showing at the Clark County convention in Nevada over the weekend could help him top Hillary Clinton in the race for the state’s delegates.


Here’s a surprise. “99 Homes,” a relatively small, tough-minded drama about pitiless people doing unprincipled things, proves to be one of the most interesting, elegantly crafted and—paradoxically, given the dark subject matter—elating films to come along in recent memory.

The elation springs from the narrative force of the filmmaking, which rises beyond craft into art: a pair of flawlessly frightening performances by Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon; a virtuoso director you may not have heard of, Ramin Bahrani,...

Summary: After being evicted at the height of the recent foreclosure crisis, a construction worker tries to reclaim his family’s home by taking a new job with the evictor; directed by Ramin Bahrani; starring Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon, with Noah Lomax and Laura Dern.


A new species of songbird has been discovered in the Galapagos Islands, but it is already thought to be extinct.

"This marks an important landmark for conservation in the Galapagos, and a call to arms to understand why these birds have declined," says co-author Jack Dumbacher from the California Academy of Sciences.

The findings were published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

Melissa Hogenboom is BBC Earth's feature writer. She is @melissasuzanneh on Twitter.

Join over five million BBC Earth fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Summary: A new species of vermilion flycatcher has been described from the Galapagos Islands, but the birds have not been seen in the wild since 1987


Looks like that diet paid off!

Days after revealing that she was skipping all holiday parties on the Fourth of July to stick to her Atkins diet, Kim Kardashian is showing off all that hard work.

WATCH: Kim Kardashian Denies Wearing Butt Pads, Explains Recent Pics: 'Everyone Has Seen My Naked Butt'

The 35-year-old mother of two took to Instagram on Thursday to do what she does best -- show off that body.

"Pre photoshoot fittings," Kardashian captioned a shot of herself in a very revealing black one-piece.

And while that one-piece is about five sizes smaller than the one we would've chosen, it does show off the reality star's tiny waist.

Kardashian's waist has been the subject of speculation recently, as critics suggested that her unbelievably tiny waist in Fergie's new "M.I.L.F.$." music video had been photoshopped.

Not one to keep quiet, Kardashian quickly clapped back at her haters with a behind-the-scenes clip from the shoot. The video, posted to her Snapchat on Monday, shows Kanye West watching footage of his wife -- and her itty bitty waist -- on a monitor. "F***YoPhotoshop #CorsetLife," the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star captioned the snap.

But of course she didn't stop there; Kardashian followed up with an explanation on her blog, detailing how her waist was created for the video. "I'm wearing latex shorts with a corset built into the back that cinches-in my waist to be CRAZY tiny...It's called 'styling,' not 'photoshop,'" she wrote.

WATCH: Kim Kardashian Takes a Milk Shower in Fergie's 'M.I.L.F.'-Centric Music Video

See more of Kardashian's defense in the video below.

Summary: Days after revealing that she was skipping all holiday parties on the Fourth of July to stick to her diet, Kim Kardashian is showing off all that hard work.


Authorities released new transcripts Monday of phone conversations the Orlando, Fla., gunman had with police during the nightclub massacre that left 49 victims dead as they sought to answer criticism of their response to the attack.

But the move sparked a political backlash because the transcripts deleted references to the Islamic State...

Summary: Authorities released new transcripts of conversations the Orlando, Fla., gunman had with police during the nightclub massacre as they sought to the answer criticism of their response to the attack. But the move sparked a backlash because the transcripts deleted references to Islamic State.


Fifteen inmates will face the firing squad in Indonesia’s next round of executions. Five are Indonesians. The rest, according to local media, are foreign — four Chinese, one Pakistani, two Nigerians, two Senegalese and one Zimbabwean.

The composition of execution lineup suggests an attempt to avoid the intense international attention and outcry that happened when Jakarta executed a total of 14 drug convicts last year —all but two of them foreign citizens. Then, there were rallies and social-media campaigns for the Australian Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Filipina migrant worker Mary Jane Veloso and Frenchman Serge Atlaoui, urging President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to pardon the condemned.

There is unlikely to be the same kind of uproar when the prison authorities in the penal island of Nusakambangan conduct the next round of executions, however.

Seven of the 10 foreigners set to be executed came from countries that implement the death penalty (China, Pakistan and Nigeria). The remaining three foreign citizens came from poor African countries: Zimbabwe, which is moving toward eliminating capital punishment, and Senegal, which abolished death penalty more than a decade ago.

The five Indonesian inmates have been transferred to the Nusakambangan in the past month — three of them last Sunday — raising speculation that executions are imminent. The government hasn’t announced the execution date and convicts’ identities, however.

“The executions can take place any time, but there will not be a ‘soap opera’ about it this time,” Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told journalists recently.

Read: Bali Nine Arrive at Indonesian Execution Island as Jokowi Spurns Clemency Pleas

Todung Mulya Lubis, human-rights lawyer and anti-death-penalty advocate, believes there will be some public outcry over the executions. “But it won’t be as much as last year,” Todung, who represented Australian drug convicts Chan and Sukumaran, tells TIME.

Chan and Sukumaran were executed in April 2015, along with the mentally ill Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte and five other men. But, the government suspended Veloso’s and Atlaoui’s executions, pending their separate legal cases. The Filipina and the Frenchman are not among the inmates slated to be executed soon.

Read: How Indonesia’s Migrant Workers Helped Save the Life of Mary Jane Veloso

Several countries, including Australia, the Netherlands and Brazil, recalled their ambassadors in protest of the 2015 executions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Jokowi, who visited Berlin last month, of her opposition to capital punishment, but the Indonesian leader defended its use. “There are between 30 and 50 people in Indonesia dying per day because of drugs,” Jokowi said, once again quoting figures that are questioned by public-health experts.

Following public condemnation of a rape-murder of a schoolgirl last month, the government is also weighing the death penalty for rape offenders.

Indonesian Attorney-General H.M. Prasetyo said that the present inmates to be put of death are all drug offenders “so they know we are really at war with drugs.” But many rights activists say capital punishment does little to deter drug crime, with the number of drug convicts rising despite the executions last year.

Summary: "There will not be a ‘soap opera’ about it this time,” the Security Minister says


Hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. has accumulated a 6.4% stake in Alcoa Inc. after the company’s decision in September to split in two, spinning off its more diverse parts-making business from its raw-aluminum operations.

The disclosure, announced in a securities filing, marked the second activist move this year on a significant U.S. metals and mining company, after Carl Icahn ’s investment in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. Investors appeared to view the latest move as an endorsement of Alcoa’s plan, sending its shares up 4.4% to $9.07 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

Representatives of Elliott, a New York hedge fund founded by Paul Singer, have been meeting with senior Alcoa executives, including Chief Executive Klaus Kleinfeld. Elliott’s analysis that Alcoa is the most undervalued of U.S. metals and mining companies prompted the investment, according to people with familiar with the matter.

The sector has been battered by the downturn in metals prices, and Elliott studied possible investments in other companies. It concluded that Alcoa was the best target because of its thriving aerospace and automotive businesses, which, the hedge fund believes, have been overshadowed by the commodity bust, these people said.

Alcoa was advised of the share purchase “several weeks ago,” the New York-based company said in a written statement.

Prices for raw aluminum have fallen more than 40% since 2011, and Alcoa’s share price has fallen by a similar amount.

That decline, Alcoa and Elliott believe, masks the prosperity of the company’s aerospace and auto businesses and was behind the aluminum company’s announcement in late September that it would spin off its more profitable and diverse parts-making units. The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year, with Alcoa shareholders owning all shares outstanding of both companies.

The raw-metals business, hurt by falling aluminum prices, will include the company’s bauxite-mining, alumina-refining and aluminum-production businesses and will still be called Alcoa to reflect the company’s heritage as the world’s first industrial producer of aluminum.

The other entity, which for now Alcoa is calling its “value-add company,” will comprise its global rolled products, engineered products and solutions, and transportation-and-construction businesses. The Alcoa entities “now each have the strength and scale to each stand on their own,” Mr. Kleinfeld said when the split was detailed.

Mr. Kleinfeld, a former chief executive at Siemens AG , has shut down Alcoa’s unprofitable raw-aluminum smelters while expanding its manufactured-parts business, including through deals. Last year, it bought U.K. jet-engine parts maker Firth Rixson Ltd., and this year Pittsburgh-based RTI International Metals Inc., one of the world’s biggest makers of fabricated titanium products for the aerospace industry.

Further changes could be in store as Elliott gets more involved. Although the hedge fund’s representatives have shied away from issuing orders, they are eager to have a “conversation” with Alcoa about improving the company’s profit margins, according to people familiar with the matter.

Alcoa’s spinoff will compete with Precision Castparts Corp. of Portland, Ore. Warren Buffett ’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bought Precision Castparts in August for $37.2 billion, including debt, in Mr. Buffett’s biggest acquisition yet.

In the third quarter, Alcoa posted a profit of $44 million, or two cents a share, down from $149 million, or 12 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 11% to $5.57 billion.

Write to John W. Miller at john.miller@wsj.com

Summary: Activist investor Elliott Management has taken a 6.4% stake in aluminum producer Alcoa, saying it believes shares of the company are significantly undervalued.


Two years after declaring its so-called caliphate, Islamic State is no longer the force it was when in 2014, losing half the ground it once held in Iraq and 20 per cent in Syria, the defence minister has told parliament.

Marise Payne said Australian Defence Force members had played a significant role, training some 10,000 members of the Iraqi military and conducting 857 air strikes on Iraq and Syria since October 2014.

"Our efforts have made a very real contribution in the fight to halt the advance of Daesh and to degrade and destroy the terrorist threat," she told the Senate on Monday.

Summary: Defence Minister Marise Payne say men and women of the Australian Defence Force have made a real contribution to the fight against Islamic State.


The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a member of a hospital's board of directors did not have the right to inspect the medical records of patients.

The decision was made in a case involving cancer experiments at the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in Brooklyn. William A. Hyman, a director of the hospital, had charged that patients were used as “human guinea pigs” in the tests without their consent.

The Appellate Division's ruling upset an earlier one by Justice John E. Cone of Supreme Court. He had given Mr. Hyman access to all the hospital's records. The Appellate Court said Mr. Hyman could inspect business records but not medical records.

The experiments involved the injection of cancer cells into 22 patients on July 16, 1963.

“The patients were not told that the injection was of cancer cells because the doctors did not wish to stir up unnecessary anxieties in the patients,” the Appelate Division said in a review of the case in its decision.

“The experiments showed that the sick and debilitated noncancer patients had the same response to foreign cancer cells as healthy volunteers; that is, there was a prompt rejection of the transplant.

“This in turn opened a wide possibility that, if there be such a biological mechanism as a defense against cancer, it may be possible to stimulate it either before cancer strikes or perhaps even later when the cancer has taken hold.”

The project was financed by the United States Public Health Service and the American Cancer Society and was undertaken by Dr. Chester M. Southam of the Sloan‐Kettering Institute for Cancer Research after 10 years of study.

The hospital and the doctors in charge of the experiment declared that each patient gave oral consent. Mr. Hyman contended that the patients were either incompetent to give their consent or that they did not understand what they were being asked to do.

The doctors felt that there was no need to tell the patients that cancer cells were being used, the court explained, because “it was not a cause of increased risk to the patient.”

That view was based on the biological law that human beings would reject cells that were transplanted from another human being unless both persons were of precisely the same genetic constitution, such as identical twins.

Mr. Hyman argued that as a director of the hospital he would be “personally responsible, both civilly and criminally, for any wrongdoing on the part of the hospital.” But the court said his fear that he could be held responsible did not mean that the privacy of the physicianpatient relationship could be broken to give him access to medical records.

The court noted that similar experiments would be undertaken the future only with the written consent of patients.

This article can be viewed in its original form. Please send questions and feedback to archive_feedback@nytimes.com

Summary: NYS Appellate Div upsets NY Sup Ct ruling, bars Hyman from inspecting med records of patients in Jewish Chronic Disease Hosp cancer experiment


Blows have been traded inside Sydney's Supreme Court during a trial over a wave of executions and shootings across the city.

Corrective services were forced to drag Mumtaz Qaumi and Mohammed Kalal away from one another as the pair fought in the dock in August.

The incident, video of which was released today, occurred midway through a secret seven-month court case where five members of the notorious Brothers 4 Life gang were on trial.

Today, renowned Sydney gangland figure and Brothers 4 Life Blacktown leader Farhad Qaumi was convicted of the manslaughter of a rival club member in 2013.

Three other high ranking figures were also found guilty of manslaughter.

Qaumi was on trial for the shooting death of Mahmoud Hamzy, who was executed in his south-western Sydney garage.

Hamzy suffered a gunshot wound to the head and died in hospital.

Hamzy's cousin Mohammed, the boss of the rival Bankstown chapter of Brothers 4 Life, was the intended target of the shooting.

Qaumi was found not guilty of the higher charge of murder.

Mahmoud Hamzy is a cousin of one of Australia's most notorious gangland figures and Supermax inmates, Bassam Hamzy.

Qaumi was shot in the shoulder when a luxury yacht he was on was peppered with bullets at Rose Bay in 2014 before his arrest.

He has already beaten two murder charges and now faces a fourth related to the death of Joe Antoun, who was gunned down in front of his two young daughters at Strathfield.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

Summary: Renowned Sydney gang figure and 'Brothers 4 Life' leader Farhad Qaumi, has been convicted of the manslaughter of a rival club member.


Two people are dead after a massive 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck New Zealand, sparking a tsunami warning and leaving some towns cut off.

The Civil Defense agency later said the tsunami threat had passed but warned on its Facebook page that coastal areas could witness strong tidal currents and sea level fluctuations for hours.

Prime Minister John Key has flown to the area and has spoken of the "utter devastation".

He estimates the clean up will run into hundreds of millions of dollars and clearing blocked roads could take months.

The quake, located near Hanmer Springs in North Canterbury at a depth of 15km, struck minutes after midnight and more than 250 aftershocks have since rattled the country.

One person reportedly died of a heart attack and another man lost his life after he was buried beneath the rubble of a house that collapsed in Kaikoura, one of the worst-affected regions.

A local state of emergency has been declared in Kaikoura and Hurunui and Marlborough District Council says police are working to rescue travellers stranded around Kaikoura.

It says the occupants of at least half a dozen campervans north of the coastal town would be airlifted to the Ward welfare centre. Those stranded to the south would be airlifted further south.

The council says there has been major infrastructure damage in Kaikoura, a popular tourist destination and which has about 1000 visitors.

There is no sewerage and no household water supply, but power is being restored.

Shops are closed and people are not able to buy food, fuel or water.

"All residents are strongly urged to conserve water," the council said.

"It may take days to restore the household water supply."

Prime Minister John Key said two people were confirmed fatalities.

Police earlier said a casualty was reported at the heritage-listed Elms Homestead at Kaikoura and another person was believed dead at a house at Mt Lyford, north of Christchurch.

Mr Key said a Defence Force helicopter was heading to Kaikoura after it was cut off by slips and ruptured roads and he would fly there on Monday afternoon to inspect the damage.

An Air Force Orion had surveyed main transport routes between Picton and Christchurch.

Schools and early childhood centres from Wellington to Canterbury would remain closed until they had been assessed.

Four homes in Christchurch abandoned by owners after a tsunami warning had been burgled, police said.

The initial quake was registered as a 6.6 magnitude shake before being upgraded by GeoNet seismologists.

A host of aftershocks above magnitude 5 were recorded with the biggest a 6.3 tremor.

The national crisis management centre had been activated but a national state of emergency had not been declared.

People in Cheviot, near the epicentre of the first quake, reported extensive damage.

"Family friends in Cheviot say some houses are gone" a woman named Brodie tweeted.

In Wellington some buildings were damaged and windows were smashed.

Wellington Region emergency controller Bruce Pepperell said a number of buildings were showing signs of "structural stress" and inspections were being carried out on bridges and tunnels around the region.

KiwiRail said it had suspended trains on the main trunk line south of Palmerston North in the North Island and north of Christchurch in the South Island.

Cook Strait ferry sailings have been cancelled and about 20 passengers aboard the Kaiarahi spent about 12 hours longer than planned on the vessel after it was unable to dock at Picton.

State Highways in the South Island have also been closed and many other local roads had also been damaged.

The quake comes almost six years after a destructive 6.3 earthquake that killed 185 people in Canterbury early in 2011.

Summary: A magnitude 7.5 earthquake centred north of Christchurch has jolted New Zealand generating a tsunami.


A former Newcastle bishop says the Anglican Church's morality has been compromised by child sex scandals and it should play no part in decisions to defrock priests.

Bishop Brian Farran on Thursday testified that he thought the church's professional standards process was too "in-house"'' and that decisions would be better made by an independent statutory body.

"I think really the morality of the church has been compromised," he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

"There has to be absolute transparency and it needs to move out ... of the church and into a body like that."

Bishop Farran has told the royal commission he felt that a group of influential parishioners were out to get him during the professional standards process that led to the defrocking of influential priest Graeme Lawrence in 2012.

He said bishops, especially in smaller dioceses, faced a real conflict of interest risk under the current process.

Commissioner Justice Peter McClellan said Bishop Farran's suggestion of state government-established bodies could raise issues regarding the separation of powers.

But the bishop doubted the church would be able to create its own national body.

"The Anglican Church of Australia has a very poor record of doing things together nationally," he said.

"I don't think it's possible."

The royal commission has heard Bishop Farran initially decided to permanently inhibit rather than defrock Lawrence, who had been accused of child sex abuse.

It heard there were rumours among clergy that Bishop Farran and Lawrence had at some point had a homosexual relationship.

The bishop denied the allegation on Thursday.

The royal commission has heard Bishop Farran knew Lawrence from the St John's Theological College at Morpeth, where it's thought 14 alleged perpetrators trained.

A draft report considered by a meeting of bishops in 2009 called the college's numbers a "significant over-representation" and a "disturbing statistic".

Bishop Farran said he referred the report to the professional standards director but did not take up the invitation to take the issue further.

He described a meeting with an alleged victim of another St John's-trained priest known as CKC, who was sexually abused over four years, as traumatic.

He said he had to leave the room at one point and issued a public apology to the man, known as CKA.

"I felt contaminated that I was a bishop and this ... man and his family had been treated in such a terrible way," Bishop Farran said.

"I just felt he'd been so wronged."

The hearings into the Newcastle Anglican Diocese continues.

Summary: A former bishop of the Newcastle Anglican Diocese has recounted a "traumatic" meeting with the survivor of prolonged child sexual abuse at the hands of priest.


Trade Minister Steve Ciobo has played down the fading prospects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal, insisting Australia doesn't have all its eggs in one basket.

Mr Ciobo met with the Obama administration's outgoing US Trade Representative Michael Froman on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima on Thursday afternoon local time.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to withdraw US support, which will scuttle the 12-country Pacific trade pact, after he's inaugurated on January 20.

Although the US Congress has a window to vote on the deal between now and then, it's still unlikely to get up.

Mr Ciobo was coy about specific talking points with Mr Froman and was unable to gain much clarity over where US trade policy is headed.

"The story is still being written," Mr Ciobo told AAP.

"It would be like saying to a Labor trade minister what is a Liberal trade minister going to do."

But he's optimistic on other trade negotiation fronts.

Australia is also in talks for a services trade deal that might get off the ground by the end of the year, as well as the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is due to arrive in the Peruvian capital on Friday morning local time and in coming days is expected to catch up one last time with Barack Obama before his presidential stint draws to a close.

Earlier, Mr Ciobo and his South Korean counterpart Joo Hyung-hwan hailed export growth almost two years after a free trade pact came into force.

Among the big winners from Australia are wineries, sugar growers, macadamia nut farmers, beef exporters and the liquified natural gas sector.

Mr Ciobo also met Peru's trade, education and energy ministers.

Australia and Peru have signed a deal for greater co-operation on higher education.

Summary: Trade Minister Steve Ciobo says the fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal is still a waiting game but Australia isn't holding its breath.