Harry weds Meghan: 1.9 bn people, a third of humanity, watched the royal wedding

Guests at the wedding included celebrities such as talk show host Oprah Winfrey, tennis star Serena Williams, actor George Clooney and his wife Amal, footballer David Beckham and his wife Victoria.

 

International News : An estimated 1.9 billion people tuned in to watch Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s star-studded royal wedding at the iconic St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, according to a media report.

Prince Harry, 33, and Meghan, 36, exchanged vows at the Chapel yesterday in presence of 600 guests, including the Queen.

“Meghan Markle and Prince Harry joined hands and exchanged vows in front of the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and an estimated 1.9 billion people watching the royal wedding on television around the world,” the ‘Daily Express’ reported.

An estimated 100,000 people turned out to see the couple, the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as they sat in an open-top Ascot Landau for a carriage procession through Windsor.

“2,640 people were invited from charities close to the couple, as well as 1,200 people who were nominated by their Lord Lieutenants,” the royal family tweeted.

“Thank you to everyone who came to Windsor and those who followed from around the UK, the Commonwealth, and the world today. Congratulations once again to the newly-married Duke and Duchess of Sussex. #royalwedding,” it said.

Guests at the wedding included celebrities such as talk show host Oprah Winfrey, tennis star Serena Williams, actor George Clooney and his wife Amal, footballer David Beckham and his wife Victoria and singer Elton John, who later performed at the lunchtime reception.

The celebrations culminated in a black-tie wedding dinner staged at Frogmore House.

The couple will live in Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace, where their neighbors will be Prince William and Kate – Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

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Can customs and border officials search your phone? Know your rights

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures

 

LATEST NEWS - A NASA scientist heading home to the U.S. said he was detained in January at a Houston airport, where Customs and Border Protection officers pressured him for access to his work phone and its potentially sensitive contents.

Last month, CBP agents checked the identification of passengers leaving a domestic flight at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport during a search for an immigrant with a deportation order.

And in October, border agents seized phones and other work-related material from a Canadian photo-journalist. They blocked him from entering the U.S. after he refused to unlock the phones, citing his obligation to protect his sources. Know your rights.

These and other recent incidents have revived confusion and alarm over what powers border officials actually have and, perhaps more importantly, how to know when they are overstepping their authority.

The unsettling fact is that border officials have long had broad powers — many people just don't know about them. Border officials, for instance, have search powers that extend 100 air miles inland from any external boundary of the U.S. That means border agents can stop and question people at fixed checkpoints dozens of miles from U.S. borders. They can also pull over motorists whom they suspect of a crime as part of "roving" border patrol operations.

Sowing even more uneasiness, ambiguity around the agency's search powers — especially over electronic devices — has persisted for years as courts nationwide address legal challenges raised by travelers, privacy advocates and civil-rights groups.(read more...)

Netflix Offline: You can now download and binge-watch shows without the internet

Video streaming pioneer Netflix Inc has added an option that allows subscribers to download shows at no additional cost on their mobile device to watch without an internet connection.

While the new option announced on Wednesday is available for all of Netflix’s subscribers, it could have greater appeal in international markets such as Africa and Asia, where internet service is less ubiquitous than it is in the United States.

Growth among U.S. subscribers has slowed in 2016. Netflix added just 370,000 subscribers during the third quarter and only 4.3 million since the third quarter of last year, suggesting they are reaching a saturation point.

The new feature is included in all plans and available for phones and tablets on Alphabet Inc's Android and Apple Inc's iOS platforms, the company said.

Netflix shares rose as much as 2.4 percent before it eased, up 0.1 percent to $117.62 on Wednesday on the Nasdaq.

#NetflixOffline was also the top-trending hashtag on Twitter, worldwide.

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5 ways how India stands to benefit from the US pulling out of TPP

United States President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said the US will quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal on his first day in the White House. The mega trade deal involves 12 Pacific rim nations including major economies like Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. With a collective population of about 800 million, almost double that of the European Union's single market, the bloc currently accounts for 40 per cent of world trade. While the free trade deal will see tariffs slashed between member nations to boost falling trade, sections within the US has argued it will further accelerate the slide in American jobs and production. Guessing that Trump does not go back on his decision, something he is known to do, India stands to benefit in a plethora of ways if TPP does not materialise.

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Here are a few of them:-

1) Access to lucrative US market to be cut for India's export competitors:

2) The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership deal to come into focus:

3) Pressure to conform with TPP standards in ongoing trade negotiations to slide:

4) India's concerns over trade diversions and other non-tariff barriers to lessen:

5) Greater chance of bilateral boost to trade by India and US:

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The Trump dialogue

A statement released by Donald Trump's transition team on Wednesday said the US President-elect and vice-president-elect Mike Pence have spoken with 29 foreign leaders since winning the election last week. Here’s the full list of the leaders:

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Adidas launches shoes made of ocean waste, priced at Rs 21,000; All you need to know

German Sportswear company Adidas is on the cutting edge of fashion trends. Adidas is now creating state-of-the-art footgear and achieving its 'sustainability' goal by collaborating with Parley for the Oceans.

Adidas has made shoes from recycled ocean waste.

According to the company, "Last year, they 3D printed a prototype, with the goal of demonstrating how the industry could "rethink design and help stop ocean plastic pollution".

Now those shoes are available to public. 95% of the shoe's upper part is made of ocean plastic, taken from Maldives shore. The remaining part of the shoe is also made mostly out of recycled materials. These contemporary shoes have been called "UltraBOOST Uncaged Parley".

Adidas has made around 7,000 pairs that will be sold offline and online from mid-November. For Adidas fans in India, the company has set aside 60 pairs. 

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10 key points in Donald Trump's 100-day Presidential action plan

US President-elect Donald Trump had announced in October the plans for his first 100 days in office. Trump’s address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which he termed ‘Contract with the American Voter’, touched upon a range of steps – from declaring China a currency manipulator to cancelling payments to the United Nations for combating climate change and renegotiating the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

The speech, which Trump started with “change has to come from outside this broken system” before going on to threaten that he would sue all those women who accused him of making unwanted sexual advances, included the promise to block telecom conglomerate AT&T’s proposed buyout of Time Warner — for an estimated $85 billion — and to break up the Comcast-NBC Universal merger.

Business Standard scans the draft of his 100-day agenda, as detailed on Trump’s website, www.donaldjtrump.com, and lists 10 key takeaways:  

1.Renegotiate Nafta
2.Energy reserves
3.China, a currency manipulator
4.Infrastructure expansion
5.Oust criminal illegal immigrants
6.Regulatory plans
7.Crackdown on lobbying
8.Trump proposed key economic legislations
9.Social legislation
10.Restoring safety

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Jackie Chan wins Oscar after 56 years in film industry

With more than 200 films under his belt spanning a 56-year career, Jackie Chan has finally received an Oscar.

The 62-year-old action star was awarded an honorary Oscar at the Eighth Annual Governors Awards at the Hollywood and Highland Center in Los Angeles on Saturday night, reported E! online.

Tom Hanks, Michelle Yeoh and Chris Tucker presented Chan with the award.

Hanks compared Chan to the likes of John Wayne and Buster Keaton.

Chan accepted his award, calling it a "dream" and shared his memories growing up and watching the Oscars with his parents.

"My dad always said, 'Son, you get so many movie awards in the world, when are you going to get one of these?' Then I just look at my dad. 'Ha, ha, ha. Dad, I only make comedy action movies,'" he shared.

The star remembered seeing Sylvester Stallone's Oscar when he had a meeting with him at his house 23 years ago.

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Homeless in America

I began election night writing a column that started with words from an immigrant, my friend Lesley Goldwasser, who came to America from Zimbabwe in the 1980s. Surveying our political scene a few years ago, Lesley remarked to me: “You Americans kick around your country like it’s a football. But it’s not a football. It’s a Fabergé egg. You can break it.”

With Donald Trump now elected President, I have more fear than I’ve ever had in my 63 years that we could do just that - break our country, that we could become so irreparably divided that our national government will not function.

From the moment Trump emerged as a candidate, I’ve taken seriously the possibility that he could win; this column never predicted otherwise, although it certainly wished for it. That doesn’t mean the reality of it is not shocking to me.

Before I lay out all my fears, is there any silver lining to be found in this vote? I’ve been searching for hours, and the only one I can find is this: I don’t think Trump was truly committed to a single word or policy he offered during the campaign, except one phrase: “I want to win.”

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What Donald Trump as America's 45th President means for India

Bucking media opposition, popular perception and Hillary Clinton’s vicious campaign, Donald Trump has emerged as the 45th president of the United States of America. Trump elucidated on his 15-point agenda in the run-up to the elections. If he decides to implement them, it could impact the Indian government, people and businesses in several ways.

Here is a lowdown on the implications Trump’s policies as the US President could have for India.

1)   The Tax Plan

2)  Plan to curtail Chinese Trade

3) Cutting Down Immigration

4)  Reviving the American Economy

5)  Foreign Policy and Terrorism

6)  The Energy Plan

7)  Scrapping Obamacare

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Donald Trump's victory: American Muslims express shock, fear

Fear and shock were expressed by American Muslims after Republican Donald Trump was confirmed as President of the US after months of taking anti-Islamic stands.

The Republican made his most controversial remarks about Islam in December last year, sparking anger among the world's 1.5 billion followers of the religion, when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the US after a mass shooting in California, the Daily Mail reported.

For the editor of the Muslim section of Patheos, a website specialising in spirituality, Dilshad Ali had never felt the fear of Trump until now.

Related Story:   Donald Trump's Victory Is Filled With Contradictions And Irony

   "I woke up today and I finally felt it. It felt personal, like the election was a vote against me," the 40-year-old mother of three told CNN on Wednesday.

More than seven in ten Muslims had said they would vote for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, according to an October survey by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Just four per cent had said they would vote for Trump, and perhaps as few expected him to win.

READ SOURCE >>>

US Elections 2016: Trump victory is negative for India, volatility will shoot up

A Donald Trump victory in the US presidential election would be negative for all emerging markets, including India. It would create demand for safe-haven bets like gold and developed-world bonds. 

Currency market is bracing for volatility even if Hillary Clinton secures a win as Trump has not cleared the air on whether he would accept the election results should he lose in a close finish.

ALSO READ:  US Election 2016: Is Donald Trump a dictator in the making?

"Even if Clinton wins, Trump may continue to push her and stoke uncertainty. If Trump wins, everything will fall and volatility will shoot up. This is not a time to take risk," said Jamal Mecklai, chief executive of Mecklai Financial, a currency consultancy firm.  

Sensex, which has come off three per cent in the past fortnight, is likely to drop further as Trump's victory could see a Brexit-like knee-jerk reaction from investors, say analysts. US bond prices will rally as investors would dump emerging market bets and that would impact the Indian bonds. Similarly, dollar will strengthen on increased inflow in US assets. This may lead to a sharp depreciation of the rupee and other emerging market currencies. For now, local bonds and currencies markets are stable. 

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10 Key points in Trump's 100-day Presidential action plan

Republican US Presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday announced the plans for his first 100 days in office if he were elected the President of the US. Trump’s address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which he termed ‘Contract with the American Voter’, touched upon a range of steps – from declaring China a currency manipulator to cancelling payments to the United Nations for combating climate change and renegotiating the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

The speech, which Trump started with “change has to come from outside this broken system” before going on to threaten he would sue all those women who accused him of making unwanted sexual advances, included the promise to block telecom conglomerate AT&T’s proposed buyout of Time Warner — for an estimated $85 billion — and to break up the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger.

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Business Standard scans the draft of his 100-day agenda, as detailed on Trump’s website, www.donaldjtrump.com, and lists 10 key takeaways:

On economic agenda

On immigration

On Corruption and transparency

On legislative agenda

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Trump challenges Clinton to drug test

Donald Trump tried to change the subject on Saturday, unveiling a plan to combat opioid addiction in the US while also challenging his Democratic presidential competitor to take a drug test before their next debate. Yet he couldn't completely drop the subject of sex, or let go of the idea of a conspiracy to take the election from him.

The Republican presidential nominee rallied in front of boisterous crowds in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and in Bangor, Maine.

The New England events came a day after two more women came forward with accusations of sexual harassment against the billionaire, which Trump has denied with vigor. He's linked the stream of allegations to a theory the presidential race is being tilted by the media in favour of Hillary Clinton.

Related: Donald Trump says allegations of sexual misconduct 'fabricated'

"The election is being rigged by the corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president," Trump said in Portsmouth.

Alluding to one of the allegations, in which an accuser says he groped her for a period of about 15 minutes, Trump sought to refute the claim on the grounds of common sense: "Fifteen minutes? With the ladies in this place, it'd be one second and then it'd be, 'Smack,'" Trump said before a crowd of about 5,000 people at a car dealership.

"It's a rigged election because you have phony people coming up with phony allegations with no evidence whatsoever," Trump said. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Saturday pushed back against Trump's suggestions about the U.S. electoral process. Ryan is "fully confident" the election will be carried out with integrity, his spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement.

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Donald Trump vows to 'protect' jobs for Americans

Injecting H-1B and outsourcing as an election campaign issue, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has alleged that companies are importing low-wage workers on the work visas and pledged to protect jobs for Americans.

"Many mothers across this country are worried their kids won't find jobs, and they are right to be worried. One of the biggest threats is outsourcing - jobs for college-educated kids are being sent to other countries," the 70-year-old reality TV star told his cheering supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio last night.

"At the same time, companies are importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans," he alleged.

"We will protect these jobs for Americans," he pledged.

H-1B work visas are the most sought after for IT professionals, particularly those from India.

While H-1B and outsourcing had become one of his frequent campaign issue during the Republican primary season early this spring and summer, it more or less remained absent from his key election issue till the election rally in Ohio ahead of the November 8 polls.

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Bob Dylan wins Nobel Literature Prize

Singer and songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” in the words of the Swedish Academy.

He is the first American to win since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, came as something of a surprise. Although Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognised.

“Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” the former Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing for Dylan to get the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.”

Dylan was born on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minn., and grew up in Hibbing. He played in bands as a teenager, influenced by the folk musician Woody Guthrie, the authors of the Beat Generation and modernist poets.

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Why men are scared to take paternity leave

One would think that if given the paid time off to care for their newborns, men would take it. But even at the rarified companies that offer paternity or parental leave, new dads don't often take advantage of the benefit. Why not? Sure, there's the cultural stigma and the (legitimate) fear of losing out on job opportunities. But giving men less time off than women might also have something to do with it.

Most organisations don't offer time off for new dads, and those that do give them about half of what new moms get, according to a new survey of more than 300 organisations from the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). New moms receive an average of 41 paid days off, compared with 22 days for dads. When given the benefit, many men take some time off, but usually not more than 10 days. That's just half the time they're offered, on average, according to a survey by Boston College.

"We say that it's important, but we're going to give you half the number of days," said Evren

Esen, the director of workforce analytics at SHRM. "It's not really equal, and that gives a message to fathers." The message is: Your time off is less important than time off for mothers.

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Snapchat planning $25 billion IPO: Report

Snap Inc - the parent company of popular photo-sharing messaging service Snapchat - is considering an initial public offering (IPO) that can value the company at $25 billion or more, media reported on Friday.

According to Wall Street Journal, Snap Inc is looking to sell shares as early as late March 2017.

The IPO would be the largest by any technology company after Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group that went public in 2014 and raised $21.8 billion for the company and investors.

Snap Inc's worth reached nearly $18 billion in May.

"Last month (September), Snapchat rolled out three new targeting options, such as a feature where marketers can take their existing list of email addresses and anonymously match that with Snapchat's own data. Marketers can also push ads to people who watch certain types of videos, like sports," WSJ reported.

Snapchat is also reportedly set to enter the augmented reality (AR) field.

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Millions in US told to flee hurricane, Haiti toll over 250

Some 3 million people on the US southeast coast faced urgent evacuation as monstrous Hurricane Matthew -- now blamed for more than 250 deaths in Haiti alone -- bore down for a direct hit on Florida.

Highways in Florida and neighboring states clogged up with people streaming inland to escape the storm.

President Barack Obama on Thursday declared a federal state of emergency in Florida as it braced for the ferocious Category Four hurricane.

Poor and vulnerable Haiti remained essentially cut in half two days after Matthew hit. Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph said at least 108 Haitians have died, with 50 killed in a single town and reports of "complete destruction" in the island's south.

In its latest target, the storm slammed the Bahamas on Thursday.

According to the forecast track, the hurricane could make landfall on Friday in the United States near Cape Canaveral, where NASA's Kennedy Space Center is located.

As US gas stations ran dry, frantic shoppers flocked to stores for essentials.

Matthew regained power as it swirled toward the US coast, upgraded a notch to Category Four on Thursday by the National Hurricane Center on its 1-5 scale.

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Google takes on Apple with Pixel phone, Home assistant

Alphabet’s Google on Tuesday announced a new “Pixel” smartphone and a virtual reality headset, the company’s latest effort to sell consumers on Google-branded devices and to challenge Apple’s iPhone at the high end of the more than $400 billion global market.

The new phone starts at a price of $649, and Google is working with exclusively with Verizon Communications in the US, Google executives said at a launch event in San Francisco. The string of announcements, including a new Wi-Fi router and its voice activated digital assistant for the living room, Home, is the clearest sign yet that Google intends to compete directly with Apple, Amazon.com and even its own Android mobile operating system customers to create a system of devices and hardware that meet every digital need.

The Pixel also represents a more hands-on policy by Google. Google lets Android device makers modify software almost without limit, which has helped make Android the most-used mobile operating system in the world. But company executives boasted that the Pixel was developed in-house from start to finish.

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