WASHINGTON- entrepreneur Jeff Bezos unveiled yesterday a mockup of a lunar lander being built by his Blue Origin rocket company and touted his moon goals in a strategy aimed at capitalizing on the Trump administration’s renewed push to establish a lunar outpost in just five years. The world’s richest man and Amazon.com Inc’s chief executive waved an arm and a black drape behind him dropped to reveal the two-story-tall mockup of the unmanned lander dubbed Blue Moon during an hour-long presentation at Washington’s convention center, just several blocks from the White House.

The lander will be able to deliver payloads to the lunar surface, deploy up to four smaller rovers and shoot out satellites to orbit the moon, Bezos told the audience, which included NASA officials and potential Blue Moon customers. His media event followed Vice President Mike Pence’s March 26 announcement that NASA plans to build a space platform in lunar orbit and put American astronauts on the moon’s south pole by 2024 “by any means necessary,” four years earlier than previously planned.

“I love this,” Bezos said of Pence’s timeline. “We can help meet that timeline but only because we started three years ago. It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.” While Bezos went out of his way to praise Pence’s timeline, the billionaire has been the target of repeated criticism from President Donald Trump, who has referred to him as Jeff “Bozo.” Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which Trump has frequently targeted in his broadsides against the news media.(Reuters)…[+]

Teach­ers at the Ari­ma Hin­du School were forced to send pupils home and shut down op­er­a­tions for the rest of the day yes­ter­day, af­ter a gun at­tack near the com­pound left one man dead and a woman in­jured. Po­lice said around 7.40 am, Do­minic Almerales and De­siree Sparkle Layne went to serve evic­tion no­tices to their for­eign ten­ants who were rent­ing apart­ments from Almerales’ house on Tem­ple Street, Ari­ma.How­ev­er, po­lice said they were both greet­ed by bul­lets from two armed men. Almerales was re­port­ed­ly struck sev­er­al times and died on the spot. Layne was shot on her arm and leg but po­lice said the in­juries were not life-threat­en­ing. She was tak­en to Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where she was treat­ed and ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion last evening.

It was re­port­ed that Almerales, a fa­ther of one, was a me­chan­ic and land­lord who lives close to his apart­ments on Tem­ple, Street. Guardian me­dia was told Almerales had heard his for­eign ten­ants were team­ing up with gangs in the area and de­cid­ed to evict them from his prop­er­ty. A res­i­dent, who was tak­ing her child to school at the time of the at­tack, told Guardian Me­dia she had to run for cov­er when she heard loud ex­plo­sions close to the school. This was fol­lowed by po­lice sirens blar­ing as of­fi­cers ar­rived on the scene.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed a graph­ic which sug­gest­ed 14-year-old Nao­mi Nel­son may have been killed by a bul­let to the head from an il­le­gal gun fired by Care­nage res­i­dents and not the po­lice. How­ev­er, he re­fused to be pressed in­to con­firm­ing what the graph­ic seemed to be sug­gest­ing, say­ing he would leave it up to the pub­lic to de­cide.

Speak­ing at the week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Grif­fith said it was not his of­fi­cers that drew first blood be­fore show­ing the me­dia a screen that de­pict­ed an im­age show­ing the po­si­tion of of­fi­cers and al­leged gang mem­bers at the shoot­ing scene last Fri­day night at Big Yard, Care­nage.

He ex­plained that the of­fi­cers en­tered the area from the West­ern Main Road and head­ed north in their un­marked ve­hi­cle when they were al­leged­ly fired up­on by the al­leged gang mem­bers on the block, who were fac­ing south. Us­ing the im­age to ex­plain fur­ther, he said the teen was be­hind the po­lice ve­hi­cle when the shoot­ing start­ed, sug­gest­ing she would have been be­hind the of­fi­cers and fac­ing the al­leged gang mem­bers who were shoot­ing at the po­lice.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

European powers have said they remain committed to the Iran nuclear deal but that they “reject any ultimatums” from Tehran to prevent its collapse. Iran announced on Wednesday that it had suspended two commitments under the 2015 accord in response to the economic sanctions the US reimposed last year.

It also threatened to step up uranium enrichment if it was not shielded from the sanctions’ effects within 60 days. The EU, UK, France and Germany noted “with great concern” Iran’s move. Under the nuclear deal, which is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief.

But a year ago US President Donald Trump abandoned the deal, saying it was “horribly one-sided” and needed to be renegotiated, and began reinstating sanctions. In November, those targeting Iran’s oil and financial sectors took effect.

Iran’s economy is now sliding towards a deep recession, the value of its currency has dropped to record lows, and its annual inflation rate has quadrupled.(BBC)…[+]

Pope Francis has made it mandatory for Roman Catholic clergy to report cases of clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups to the Church. In an Apostolic letter, which is set to become Church law, he makes clear that any sexual advance involving the use of power will now be considered abusive.

The clarification is being seen as a message to the Church hierarchy that no-one will be exempt from scrutiny. The Pope promised in February to take concrete action to tackle abuse. The new Apostolic letter makes clear that clerics should also follow state law and meet their obligations to report any abuse to “the competent civil authorities”. The new guidelines were welcomed by some Vatican commentators, who argued that they broke new ground in attempts to end Church sexual abuse.(BBC)…[+]