Top officials of the U.S. central bank are gathered in Washington, debating whether to raise short-term interest rates on Wednesday, and by how much. 

Most economists expect the Federal Reserve to boost the benchmark rate a modest quarter of a percent, to a range between one and 1.25 percent. 

The Fed cut rates nearly to zero at the worst of the financial crisis to make borrowing cheaper in a bid to boost economic growth and employment. Since then, the recovering economy and improved unemployment rate, at 4.3 percent, have prompted the central bank to gradually raise rates. 

Officials worry that keeping rates too low for too long could spark a burst of inflation that could hurt the economy. The Fed’s job is to keep prices stable and encourage full employment. However, Tuesday’s newest data on inflation at the wholesale level shows little change. Fed officials have been trying to get inflation to rise to a low-but-manageable rate of about two percent. 

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is scheduled to meet with journalists Wednesday afternoon, where she is likely to get questions about possible future interest rate hikes. She may also explain more about the Fed’s plans to gradually sell off the huge number of securities that the central bank bought during the financial crisis in a complex effort to stimulate the economy. 

Meanwhile, officials will get new information on changes in consumer prices and retail sales before they make their decision on interest rates. Investors watch retail sales closely because consumer demand drives most U.S. economic activity. 
…

From: MeNeedIt

It’s the end of an internet era.

Yahoo, an iconic early adapter of the World Wide Web, is now part of Verizon Communications, after a $4.48 billion deal was finalized Tuesday for Yahoo’s core internet operations.

The remainder of Yahoo will be called Atlaba Inc., which will serve as a holding company for Yahoo’s shares in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

Yahoo was founded in 1994 by two Stanford graduate students, and quickly became a leading portal site. At the height of the dot-com bubble, it was estimated to be worth $100 billion.

Now, under Verizon, Yahoo will join another aged internet property, AOL. The two companies will part of a division of Verizon called Oath, which is led by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.

Oath says it has about 1.3 billion monthly users, and it hopes Yahoo may help build audience.

“Now that the deal is closed, we are excited to set our focus on being the best company for consumer media, and the best partner to our advertising, content and publisher partners,”Armstrong said.

About 2,100 people are expected to lose their jobs under the new structure in what Oath says will be a cost saving measure.

Controversial Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will not join Oath. According to the New York Times, she was paid on average $1 million per week during her five-year stint at Yahoo. She is also reportedly receiving a $23 million severance package.

“Given the inherent changes to my role, I’ll be leaving the company,” Mayer wrote in an email to employees. “However, I want all of you to know that I’m brimming with nostalgia, gratitude and optimism.”

“Verizon wishes Mayer well in her future endeavors,” it said in a statement.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Britain’s descent into political crisis just days before Brexit talks begin has sapped confidence among business leaders and infuriated bosses who were already grappling with the fallout from the vote to leave the EU.

The failure by Prime Minister Theresa May to win a parliamentary majority in last week’s election has pushed the world’s fifth largest economy towards a level of political uncertainty not seen since the 1970s.

May called the election to secure a mandate for her vision of a “hard Brexit” – driving down migration by taking Britain out of the single market and the customs union. Instead, she got a hung parliament in which no single party has a majority. Business leaders demanded a re-think.

“The U.K. has had a reputation, earned over the generations, for stability and predictability in its government,” a senior executive at a multi-national company listed on the London FTSE 100 told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “That reputation in 12 months has been destroyed, truly destroyed. First by Brexit and now through this election.”

A survey by the Institute of Directors (IoD) found only 20 percent of its nearly 700 members were now optimistic about the British economy over the next 12 months, compared with 57 percent who were quite or very pessimistic.

The IoD survey, taken after the election, found a negative swing of 34 points in confidence in the economy from its previous survey in May.

“It is hard to overstate what a dramatic impact the current political uncertainty is having on business leaders, and the consequences could — if not addressed immediately — be disastrous for the U.K. economy,” said Stephen Martin, director general of the IoD.

The collapse in confidence, which follows a short-term drop after last year’s Brexit vote, coincides with a slowdown in the wider economy that has taken hold since the start of this year, as rising inflation pushes up the price of goods.

Figures from credit card firm Visa showed British consumers turned more cautious even before the shock election result, with households cutting their spending for the first time in nearly four years last month.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) warned there was now a risk businesses would cut back on investment which has largely held up since last year’s Brexit vote.

And the trade group that represents manufacturers, the EEF, said its members were having to navigate the most uncertain political territory in Britain for decades.

Both groups called on the government to rethink its approach to Brexit, saying the country needed tariff-free access to the single market and a steady flow of migrant workers.

Some executives hoped the political paralysis would lead to a ‘softer Brexit’, with access to markets prioritized over a clamp down on immigration.

“Here we are again: another bolt from the blue, a political earthquake that we didn’t think used to happen in the U.K.,” CBI Director General Carolyn Fairbairn said at a conference hosted by the Resolution Foundation. “But I do think there are opportunities in this, and it is an opportunity to refocus back on the economy to talk about jobs, growth, future prosperity.”

Having slid to its lowest for nearly two months against the dollar on Friday, the pound fell broadly again on Monday.

Left in limbo

Business executives warned the political uncertainty could be felt across a wave of sectors.

Leaders of the drugs industry warned of the hazards of government limbo at a critical time for the highly regulated sector as companies seek clarity on the rules that will govern their business after Brexit.

Andy Bruce, the CEO of Lookers, one of Britain’s biggest car dealerships, said the lack of a clear result meant the highly successful industry had now entered “uncharted waters” in terms of how many new cars it could sell.

And Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the world’s largest advertising agency, told Reuters he feared increased economic uncertainty, which meant “weak investment and postponement of decision making.”

“Now it seems that we could have no deal because of the short time fuse and lack of decisive government decision making, or a soft Brexit, the latter with more movement and membership of the single market,” he said.

Bankers, at the heart of London’s huge financial center, cautioned of the impact on takeover activity.

“So long as uncertainty is there I don’t see that as particularly positive for M&A in the short term,” Karen Cook, chairman of investment banking at Goldman Sachs said at the Reuters Global M&A summit.

Gareth Vale, marketing director at recruitment group Manpower, said its clients were very apprehensive, and had not yet fully grasped the impact that Brexit would have.

“I think the uncertainty around Brexit, and more recently the general election, has created a sense of almost inertia, which has prevented them from considering some of the bigger seismic shifts that are on the horizon.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

The Trump administration has a backup plan to keep the government from defaulting on its financial obligations even if Congress misses an August deadline to raise the debt limit, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a congressional panel Monday.

Mnuchin had previously set an August deadline for the federal government to avoid a catastrophic default. Mnuchin said he still prefers that Congress increase the government’s authority to borrow before lawmakers leave on a five-week break in August.

However, he said he is “comfortable” that the Treasury Department can meet the government’s financial obligations through the start of September. Private analysts say Mnuchin probably has even greater leeway.

“If for whatever reason Congress does not act before August, we do have backup plans that we can fund the government,” Mnuchin said without elaborating. “So I want to make it clear that that is not the timeframe that would create a serious problem.”

The federal government technically hit the debt limit in March, but Treasury has been using accounting steps known as “extraordinary measures” to avoid a default.

Shortly before Mnuchin testified, a Washington think tank projected that despite the slowdown in revenues, the government will have enough cash to pay its bills until October or November.

The Bipartisan Policy Center says that revenue results from this month’s quarterly tax payments could clarify the deadline, but for now it forecasts that Mnuchin has sufficient maneuvering room to keep the government solvent into the fall. The policy center says a big Oct. 2 payment into the military retirement trust fund could trigger default.

As of Friday, the Treasury had a cash balance of $148 billion, down from $204 billion a month ago. The national debt is nearly $20 trillion, including money owed to several federal programs.

Vote on debt limit

Raising the debt limit has become a politically-charged vote in Congress, even though economists believe that an unprecedented default would be catastrophic for the economy. Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, are struggling to come up with a strategy to raise the debt limit, with some GOP members demanding spending cuts in exchange for their vote.

But since Republicans have many members who simply refuse to vote for a debt increase, GOP leaders such as Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin may have no choice but to seek help from Democrats, who are demanding that any debt limit hike be “clean” of GOP add-ons.

Lawmakers are trying to deal with the debt limit while at the same time a House panel is beginning work on spending bills to fund the government.

Republicans controlling the House are taking the first steps to approve President Donald Trump’s big budget increase for veterans’ health care and the Pentagon.

Spending bill

At stake is an $89 billion spending bill for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Pentagon construction projects that’s scheduled for a preliminary panel vote on Monday. The bill would give the VA a 5 percent budget hike for the budget year beginning in October as the agency works to improve wait times and correct other problems.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, would receive a $2 billion, 10 percent increase for military construction projects at bases in both the U.S. and abroad.

“This legislation includes the funding and policies necessary to deliver on our promises to our military and our veterans,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, a Republican from New Jersey.

Republicans are still struggling to come up with a broader budget that would dictate spending levels for other agencies. Trump has proposed sharp cuts to many domestic agencies and foreign aid as a means to pay for increases for the military. But many GOP lawmakers have already signaled that they disagree with Trump.

Under Washington’s arcane budget rules, lawmakers are first supposed to pass an overall fiscal blueprint called a budget resolution before tackling the annual round of spending bills. This year, that budget plan is also the key to unlocking action later this year on legislation to overhaul the tax code, a top GOP priority.

Instead, Republicans are split into three camps on spending: defense hawks who want even more money for the military than proposed by Trump; pragmatists who are defenders of domestic programs; and conservatives who agree with Trump’s plan to cut domestic agencies and deliver the proceeds to the Pentagon.

For now, those GOP divisions have meant an impasse for Trump’s overall budget and tax agenda.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Israel will reduce electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian Authority limited how much it pays for power to the enclave run by Hamas, Israeli officials said Monday.

The decision by Israel’s security cabinet is expected to shorten by 45 minutes the daily average of four hours of power that Gaza’s 2 million residents receive from an electricity grid dependent on Israeli supplies, the officials said.

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed Hamas’ failure to reimburse it for electricity for the reduction in power supplies.

But PA spokesman Tareq Rashmawi coupled that explanation with a demand that Hamas agree to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ unity initiatives, which include holding the first parliamentary and presidential elections in more than a decade.

“We renew the call to the Hamas movement and the de facto government there to hand over to us all responsibilities of government institutions in Gaza so that the government can provide its best services to our people in Gaza,” he said.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel and the Palestinian Authority “will bear responsibility for the grave deterioration” in Gaza’s health and environmental situation.

Any worsening to Gaza’s power crisis — its main electrical plant is off-line in a Hamas-PA dispute over taxation — could cause the collapse of health services already reliant on stand-alone generators, many of them in a poor state of repair, said Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Israel charges the PA 40 million shekels ($11 million) a month for electricity, deducting that from the transfers of Palestinian tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Authority.

Israel does not engage with Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group.

Last month, the Palestinian Authority informed Israel that it would cover only 70 percent of the monthly cost of electricity that the Israel Electric Corporation supplies to the Gaza Strip.

At the security cabinet session late on Sunday, ministers decided that Israel would not make up the shortfall, the officials said.

“This is a decision by [Abbas] … Israelis paying Gaza’s electricity bill is an impossible situation,” Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said on Army Radio.

Israeli military and security chiefs backed the move, despite concern Hamas could respond by increasing hostilities with Israel.

Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas’s Fatah movement in 2007, and several attempts at reconciliation, most recently in 2014, have failed. Hamas has accused Abbas of trying to turn the screw on them to make political concessions.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Work longer hours. Get fewer benefits. Retire years later. Those are the ingredients of the bitter medicine Brazilians are being asked to swallow as a cure for the country’s moribund, overregulated economy.

It would be a tough sell under any conditions, but it’s even harder because few trust the politicians trying to pour it down their throats. And a wave of corruption scandals that threaten to topple even the president could water down, if not sink, any cure.

President Michel Temer finds himself in a dilemma: He needs the economic reforms to boost his credibility — and perhaps even to avoid being ousted over a flurry of corruption allegations. But his credibility and that of his allies is so low that few Brazilians trust them to do what’s necessary to expand the job market and get people back to work.

Temer’s future is unclear

Congress — and action on the reforms — has all but come to a halt in recent weeks after a recording emerged in which Temer apparently endorses the payment of hush money to a former lawmaker imprisoned on money laundering and corruption charges. He has also been accused of accepting bribes. He denies wrongdoing, but he could soon face formal charges.

The country’s political and business class has been distracted, when not terrified, by a stream of revelations about bribery, kickbacks and general corruption centered on the national oil company, Petrobras, that has led to the jailing of dozens of the country’s elite. The politicians also face an impending deadline: next year’s October elections.

“The only thing that appears certain is that the reform agenda has been compromised,” said Silvio Campos Neto, an economist at Tendencias, a Sao Paulo-based consultancy. “The survival of this government is uncertain, and this has a negative impact on the resumption of investments.”

Reforms are a must

Business leaders and top economists argue that reforms are needed to convince investors to start pouring money again into Latin America’s largest economy, which is tentatively emerging from a deep recession.

They’ve been backing Temer’s proposed reforms that would lengthen the legal work day, let agreements negotiated between employees and bosses override some labor laws and allow companies to outsource more work and hire temporary workers for longer — potentially reducing the number of jobs with full benefits.

Temer also wants workers to contribute longer before they receive pension benefits. Many public workers in Brazil now can retire at age 54 with nearly full benefits. The reforms would set a minimum retirement age for the first time in Brazil, at 65 for men and 62 for women.

Approval rating under 10 percent

The proposed cuts are one reason Temer’s approval rating is below 10 percent in many polls, giving him no political leverage beyond the doors of congress, where his nervous allies hold a majority.

Unions staged an April 28 general strike that brought much of the country to a halt, and they promise more action.

If Temer doesn’t listen, “we will once again stop Brazil and then maybe Brasilia will hear the voice of the people,” said Joao Cayres, director of the Central Workers Union, which represents over 7 million people.

Business-minded economists argue that current labor laws discourage hiring. And the generous benefits for retirees are taking an increasing chunk of the country’s gross domestic product.

“The economy won’t collapse if Congress fails to approve the reforms, but its recovery will be slow and full of uncertainty,” said Ricardo Ribeiro, of Sao Paulo’s MCM Consultancy.

Temer won’t step down

 Temer, who denies wrongdoing, argues he can still deliver the reforms.

 At a meeting of business leaders on May 30, he insisted the economy was “on the right track” and promised to leave “the house in order” for the next president.

Two days later, he got a rare piece of good news: The country’s gross domestic product expanded by 1 percent in the first quarter of this year as compared to the last quarter of 2016 thanks in part to bumper harvests of soy and corn.

It was the first time GDP had grown after eight consecutive quarters of contraction, ending Brazil’s worst recession in decades. The economy has been dragged down in large part by a slump in global prices for its commodities.

Ruling favors Temer

Temer also notched a victory last week when Brazil’s top electoral court voted narrowly to reject allegations of illegal financing in the 2014 presidential campaign. He could have been ousted if it had ruled otherwise.

Risk consultancy Eurasia said Temer’s breaks wouldn’t be enough to get the existing pension reform measure through. “A stripped-down version of it is likely, although even then close to a toss-up,” wrote Christopher Garman, head of Brazil analysis for the group.

Some 14 million Brazilians are unemployed, or 13.7 percent of the workforce, up from 10.9 percent at the same period last year.

Thousands of public workers are not being paid on time, or at all. Among them are the chorus, orchestra and ballet at the Municipal Theatre of Rio de Janeiro. They plan to ask theater-goers for donations of canned food and household goods as they enter for the season-opening opera “Carmina Burana.”

Ballet dancer has backup plan

Renata Gouveia, a 19-year-veteran ballet dancer at the company, spends her nights making truffles to sell and is designing and selling her own dancewear.

“Out of something terrible, I’m trying to take out the positive, working in things I never saw myself doing,” she said.

“Talk that the economy is improving is “a joke,” said Jose Augusto, a 53-year-old handyman who came to the Ministry of Labor in Rio de Janeiro recently looking for work. “In order to hit the restart button, Brazil needs to employ its workers first. We are millions.”

“Our politicians are shameless thieves,?” added Augusto. “Everything’s rotten, starting with the president and all of the congressmen.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Bangladesh has begun training thousands of school girls to protect them from being blackmailed or harassed online following an alarming rise in cybercrimes. 

The Information & Communication Technology (ICT) Division of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Post, Telecommunication & Information Technology recently finished conducting a pilot project in which female students from urban areas were taught how to keep themselves safe if they faced online threats.

“Most of the victims of cybercrime in our country are young girls. So, we decided to spread awareness among the girls first. In this pilot project, over 10,000 girls from 40 schools and colleges took part in our workshops and we got a massive response. Now we have our target to take this campaign across the whole country involving 40 million students in 170,000 schools and colleges,” Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister for ICT told VOA.

Internet growth

Bangladesh has experienced a double-digit growth in Internet use every year in the past 15 years and almost half of the social media users in the country are women and teenage girls, but authorities say they make up about 70 percent of cybercrime victims.

Mishuk Chakma, a cybersecurity expert of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said the boyfriends of the Facebook-using girls often trick them into posing for intimate photographs or videos.

“Later, when their relationships are on the rocks, their former boyfriends post the photos and videos in the social media to emotionally blackmail the girls. Such photos and videos often trigger troubles in the lives of the girls after they get into new relationships or get married,” Chakma told VOA. “In such a situation many marital relationships are getting into troubles and even in a few cases the girls are taking extreme steps like attempting suicide.”

Sahana, a 15-year-old who took part in an ICT-organized workshop, said she feels she has benefitted from the training. 

“I shall verify one’s identity in many ways before I accept his or her Facebook ‘friend request’ now. Now I have also learned that I should not disclose much of my personal information on Facebook,” she said. “Also, I am quite confident now that none can harass or blackmail me on Facebook.”

Raising awareness

Sometimes the criminals are superimposing faces of the girls, who are known to them, onto the bodies of nude models or adult film stars to blackmail and defame the girls, Chakma said.

“Cyber harassment of girls and women can be effectively curbed if the spread of awareness among the social media users increases,” he said.

The Office of the Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA) of the ICT Division hired cybersecurity consulting agency Four D Communications to conduct the recent training of the 10,000 girls.

Abdullah Al Imran, managing director of Four D Communications, said apart from learning how to defend themselves online, the girls also learned how to bring cyber criminals to justice. 

“Very surprisingly we found that as much as 93 percent of the girls who participated in the training did not know that Bangladesh already has an ICT Act to help cyber harassment victims. We also taught them where and how they would seek help in case they were harassed or blackmailed online,” Imran told VOA. “Girls mostly from urban areas took part in our pilot project. I am sure, in smaller towns and rural areas the Internet literacy level among girls is even lower and they are more vulnerable there.”

But Lawyer Tureen Afroz, an advocate in Dhaka’s Supreme Court, said to deal with the growing cybercrime the government should amend further the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006 or ICT Act to make it up to date.

“Indeed it’s a good initiative that the government is trying to educate the girls and raise awareness among them about the growing trend of cybercrimes.  But, the government also needs to revamp the judiciary to achieve higher rate of success in fight against such crimes,” she said. “We are still unable to make the best use of smarter electronic evidences to pin down the cyber criminals in the court of law.”

Expansion

Senior officials say the government is keen to spread cyber safety awareness across the whole country.

Abul Mansur Mohammad Sharf Uddin, who heads the government’s cyber safety awareness campaign, said his department is busy on a blueprint to expand the campaign. 

“For the students, the contents on Internet literacy, which will be included to the national curriculum, will be ready soon. We want to introduce the course not just in schools and colleges, but also in over 100 universities of the country. We will also raise teachers across academic institutions of the country who will conduct cyber safety training classes for students locally,” Sharf Uuddin said.    
…

From: MeNeedIt

Actor Bill Cosby could charm jurors at his sexual assault trial if he testifies this week, but experts say the risk would be considerable.

Accuser Andrea Constand has told her side of the story. The jury also heard Cosby’s version in the form of his police statement and his lurid deposition in her 2005 lawsuit. But will they hear from the 79-year-old actor himself when the defense starts Monday?

Cosby’s spokesman says maybe, but his lawyers remain mum.

“He could be a fantastic witness. … He’s an actor and he’s a very good actor,” said Duquesne University School of Law professor Wes Oliver. “(But) he is potentially opening the door to a whole lot of cross-examination that they fought really hard to keep out.”

Prosecutors wanted 13 other accusers to testify at the trial, but the judge allowed just one, an assistant to his agent at the William Morris Agency. That meant the prosecution rested its case on Friday, just five days after the trial began.

If Cosby testifies, and denies drugging and molesting Constand or anyone else, the judge might allow more accusers to testify as rebuttal witnesses.

“It would be very bad for him for the jury to even begin to think about the other women,” Oliver said.

The defense’s main goal this past week has been to attack the credibility of Constand and the William Morris assistant, Kelly Johnson. Johnson had corroborating evidence in the form of her 1996 worker’s compensation claim. A lawyer on the case recalled her startling account of being drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby, but his notes revealed a glaring discrepancy in the account. He said the encounter occurred in 1990, while Johnson insists it was 1996, the year she left her job.

The defense had more trouble trying to discredit Constand. They hammered home the point that she doesn’t know just when it happened, and they questioned why she had regular phone contact with Cosby later that spring. Constand said she had to return calls from the Temple University trustee because he was an important booster and she worked for the women’s basketball team.

She filed a police complaint in January 2005 after moving back home to the Toronto area, and then sued Cosby in March 2005 when the local prosecutor decided not to charge him.

Cosby’s testimony in her civil case shows just how hard a witness he would be to control. His answers, like his comedy routines, meander from point to point and veer toward stream of consciousness.

And he uses jarring language to describe his sexual encounters with various young women. He talks in the deposition of “the penile entrance” and “digital penetration,” and he told Constand’s mother, when she called to confront him, that her daughter had had an orgasm. And he can display hints of arrogance.

“One of the greatest storytellers in the world and I’m failing,” Cosby said when asked to repeat an answer in the deposition.

The defense could call other witnesses to try to bolster their argument that Cosby had a consensual relationship with Constand, 35 years his junior.

The trial would move to closing arguments on Monday if they decide not to put anyone on the stand.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand and Johnson have done.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Katy Perry opened up about having suicidal thoughts during a marathon weekend livestream event.

“I feel ashamed that I would have those thoughts, feel that low, and that depressed,” she said Saturday on YouTube during a tearful session with Siri Singh from the Viceland series “The Therapist.”

The pop star has been livestreaming herself since Friday, filming her life for anyone with an internet connection to see. She’s been doing yoga, hosting dinner parties, sleeping, applying makeup and singing, of course.

By Sunday, the most revealing 60 minutes of the four-day “Katy Perry – Witness World Wide” event was her time with Singh.

Perry told Singh she struggles with her public persona. In the past, she said, she has had suicidal thoughts. She talked about the challenge of being her authentic self while promoting her public image as she lives “under this crazy microscope.”

“I so badly want to be Katheryn Hudson (her birth name) that I don’t even want to look like Katy Perry anymore sometimes – and, like, that is a little bit of why I cut my hair, because I really want to be my authentic self,” she said.

Perry is sporting a new short, blond hairstyle.

The YouTube event is a promotion for her new album “Witness.” The livestream will culminate in a free concert Monday in Los Angeles for 1,000 fans.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Judy Garland has been laid to rest in a mausoleum named for her at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

A spokeswoman for Garland’s estate says her family and friends held a private memorial service for the actress Saturday, which would have been Garland’s 95th birthday. She was buried in the Judy Garland Pavilion.

Garland’s children, Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft and Joe Luft, wanted to bring their mother’s remains “home to Hollywood” from her original burial site at New York’s Ferncliff Cemetery, publicist Victoria Varela said. They attended the service, along with Garland’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

In a statement released to The Associated Press, they offered gratitude to their mother’s “millions of fans around the world for their constant love and support.”

Garland’s children announced earlier this year that they had relocated their mother’s remains to Los Angeles. Garland’s third husband, Mickey Deans, buried her in New York, but her children said she wished to be interred with her family in Hollywood, Varela said.

The Judy Garland Pavilion is intended as a final resting spot for Minnelli, Luft and other family members, cemetery spokeswoman Noelle Berman said in January.

Garland, star of classic films including The Wizard of Oz and Meet Me in St. Louis, died in 1969 at age 47 in London.

Jayne Mansfield, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino and Cecil B. DeMille are among the entertainment luminaries buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Rocker Chris Cornell was laid to rest there last month.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Natural caves where desert natives once made their homes … places where massive boulders appear to rise up from the desert … ancient rocks inscribed with symbolic carvings … a once-active volcano where visitors can walk down into its center. These are just a few of the timeless wonders that national parks traveler Mikah Meyer recently visited during his journey through the southwestern state of New Mexico. He shared highlights with VOA’s JulieTaboh.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Danger lurks at Dracula’s castle.

Romanian authorities have closed a 13th-century fortress connected to Vlad the Impaler after a mother bear and her cubs were found roaming in the area.

The citadel, atop a mountain in central Romania, can be reached only by climbing 1,480 steps. It was shut in late May “for the safety of visitors,” its website said Saturday.

Local prefect Emilian Dragnea says the Environment Ministry had agreed to capture the four bears and relocate them elsewhere. Authorities blame people for leaving food in the area.

The citadel was repaired by 15th-century Romanian prince Vlad the Impaler, who inspired Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic novel “Dracula.”

Bran Castle, also associated with Dracula, is a bigger tourist attraction.

Romania is home to between 5,000 and 6,000 brown bears.

 
…

From: MeNeedIt