Notre Dame Cathedral kept standing amid fire with giant robot ‘Colossus’ - Fox News

Firefighters are seen with a robot firefighter called Colossus, made by French robotics company Shark Robotics, outside Notre-Dame Cathedral after a major fire yesterday in Paris, France.  (Getty Images)

As flames swept through the 800-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, threatening priceless religious treasures and the entire structure's integrity, crucial help in battling the ferocious blaze came from an unlikely source.

Colossus, a 1,100-pound robot that resembles a tank, was able to deftly maneuver into dangerous parts of the horrific conflagration amidst conditions that would have threatened the lives of firefighters.

The robot, which is produced by a French company called Shark Robotics, used a motorized water cannon that reportedly fired more than 660 gallons per minute at the cathedral's famous stone walls. According to the company, Colossus is about 2.5 feet wide and 5.25 feet long and can be operated by a joystick from almost 1,000 feet away.

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The commander of the Paris Fire Brigade, Jean-Claude Gallet, credited Colussus with lowering temperatures inside the ancient cathedral's nave and saving human lives amid the unfolding disaster.

“Time was against us, the wind was against us and we had to get the upper hand,” Gabriel Plus, a spokesman for the fire brigade, told the Times of London. “The priority we set was to save the two belfries. Imagine if the timber of the belfries had been weakened and the bells had collapsed. That was really our fear. In the beginning, it was not impossible to imagine that the cathedral structure could collapse.”

The heroic robot is also resistant to thermal radiation and completely waterproof, according to Shark Robotics. The company's site says the machine’s lithium ion batteries can last for up to eight hours, and the robot can be equipped with cameras, sensors and a smoke-extracting fan.

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According to experts, other countries are also developing robots to assist in fighting fires.

Brian Lattimer, the vice president of research and development at the safety engineering and consulting firm Jensen Hughes, told The Washington Post that operating in dangerous environments is just one part of the appeal of firefighting robots, and that as the technology improves, the robots will help in other ways.

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“The goal will be for firefighters to be in the loop with these robots to assist and evaluate the hazards so they can plan an effective response,” Lattimer told the Post. “Eventually, we’ll have collaborative teams of robots – in the air and on the ground – that will work closely with people and reduce the risk to human life.”

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https://www.foxnews.com/tech/notre-dame-cathedral-kept-standing-amid-fire-with-giant-robot-colossus

2019-04-18 14:45:17Z
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Tour Bus Crashes In Portugal, Killing At Least 29 - NPR

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Rescue workers help a person who was inside a tour bus that crashed Wednesday in Caniço, a coastal town on Portugal's island of Madeira. Rui Silva/AP hide caption

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Rui Silva/AP

A tour bus has crashed in Portugal, killing at least 29 people and injuring 28, authorities said.

The incident occurred Wednesday evening on the island of Madeira, a vacation destination known as the pearl of the Atlantic. The bus swerved off a winding street in the coastal town of Caniço and then tumbled down a hill. Many of the victims are German citizens, whose identities have not yet been made public.

By Thursday morning, nine people who had been injured in the crash were discharged from a local hospital, according to Lusa News Agency, while 18 remained in care.

A Portuguese man and woman are among the injured, Tomasia Alves, head of the Funchal hospital, told reporters on Thursday, according to The Associated Press.

Heiko Maas, Germany's minister of foreign affairs, announced that he would fly to Madeira on Thursday with doctors, psychologists and consular officers. He planned to speak to people who had been affected by the crash. The office also had set up a hotline for families.

Photographs from the scene show ambulances parked near the wrecked vehicle and rescue works helping wounded passengers on the lush hillside.

Many of the victims were said to be between 40 and 50 years old.

"It's with sadness and dismay that I think of our compatriots and all the other people who were affected by the terrible bus accident on Madeira," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement posted on Twitter by spokesman Steffen Seibert‏.

Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa expressed his regrets to the families and said he conveyed his condolences to Merkel.

Authorities have launched an investigation into the crash. Pedro Calado, the vice president of the island's regional government, told reporters that the bus was five years old and had passed inspections, according to AP.

The company that owns the vehicle, Madeira Automobile Society, reportedly vowed its "deep commitment" to uncovering the "facts, causes and responsibilities" that led to the fatal bus ride.

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https://www.npr.org/2019/04/18/714582566/bus-carrying-tourists-crashes-in-portugal-at-least-29-reported-dead

2019-04-18 14:14:00Z
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Trump Administration Announces Measures Against Cuba, Venezuela And Nicaragua - NPR

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National security adviser John Bolton discusses new administration policy regarding Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua on Wednesday in Florida. Wilfredo Lee/AP hide caption

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The Trump administration has announced new sanctions and penalties against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua aimed at both ending the rule of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and weakening Cuba's communist regime.

One of the measures will allow lawsuits against foreign firms operating on property in Cuba that was seized from U.S. citizens during the Cuban revolution — a reversal of more than 20 years of U.S. policy.

Announcing the crackdown in Coral Gables, Fla., on Wednesday, national security adviser John Bolton called Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua the "troika of tyranny" and said the new measures would "end the glamorization of socialism and communism."

The measures come as the U.S. pushes for Venezuela and the international community to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president.

"This is just the beginning," Bolton said. "As long as the people of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua stand for freedom, the United States will stand with them."

Earlier on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. would no longer suspend Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.

That provision allows U.S. citizens to file lawsuits in U.S. courts against foreign companies "trafficking" in property confiscated after the 1959 revolution in Cuba. Previous administrations had a long-standing policy of waiving the provision for six months at a time. But the Trump administration had signaled its intent to tighten the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba earlier this year when it only renewed the waiver for 45 days.

The new policies announced Wednesday also include sanctions on Venezuela's central bank and a financial services provider in Nicaragua that the administration calls a "slush fund" for President Daniel Ortega.

But Havana took the brunt of the measures, which experts say are likely to impact the country's stagnant economy.

Bolton said the U.S. would institute restrictions on "non-family" travel in order to decrease the amount of money Americans spend on tourism in the country, an industry that Bolton said is controlled by the regime.

Tourism is a structural factor in Cuba's economy, and a rush of visitors hit the island when President Obama made it easier for U.S. citizens to make the trip. But the industry has seen a decline since President Trump took office and rolled back several Obama-era policies.

Bolton also announced a cap on remittances to Cuba of $1,000 per person per quarter. The Obama administration had removed remittance limits, and the State Department says remittances to Cuba from the United States amounted to $3 billion in 2016, The Associated Press reports.

One attendee of the speech told the AP he believes the measures announced by Bolton will bring down Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel's government.

"Today is a big day," said Rafael UsaTorres, who was a member of Brigade 2506 that worked for the CIA during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. "But I feel very sad — too many years waiting."

Fernando Cutz, who helped shape Latin America policy on the National Security Council in both the Trump and Obama administrations, says that the policies announced on Wednesday are likely to bring hardship to Cuba, but not regime change.

"What we are leading the Cuban people toward is a darker day where there will be less economic opportunity, there will be less of a middle class and essentially just very hard times to come for the people of Cuba," he told NPR's Carrie Kahn.

As NPR's David Welna reports, ending the Title III waiver opens the door to hundreds of thousands of lawsuits seeking billions of dollars from Cuba. According to Robert Muse, a Washington attorney with expertise in Cuban expropriations, the decision will likely trigger a flood of lawsuits against the Cuban government.

"It puts virtually every commercial enterprise on the island in question at this point and subject to a lawsuit," Muse told Welna.

Pompeo called the move a "chance at justice" for Cuban-Americans and urged anyone doing business in Cuba to examine whether they were "abetting" the regime.

"Those doing business in Cuba should fully investigate whether they are connected to property stolen in service of a failed communist experiment," he said.

"No one is going to take away from us, neither by allurement or by force," Cuba's Díaz-Canel responded on Twitter. "... We Cubans are not surrendering."

Title III is not any worse than Titles I and II, that are part of the array of actions against all the people of #Cuba. No one is going to take away from us, neither by allurement or by force, "the Homeland the forefathers won us standing". We Cubans are not surrendering. pic.twitter.com/rtg70vsSvK

— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) April 17, 2019

In a joint statement, the European Union and Canada called the Trump administration's decision regarding Title III "regrettable" and said it would have "an important impact on legitimate EU and Canadian economic operators in Cuba."

With regard to Venezuela, Bolton said the state's central bank had been crucial to Maduro's continued rule and that the sanctions imposed on it "should be a strong warning to all external actors, including Russia, against deploying military assets to Venezuela to prop up the Maduro regime." The sanctions do not bar humanitarian aid or private remittances, the AP reports.

And he announced sanctions on Nicaragua's BanCorp, which the U.S. Department of the Treasury said on Wednesday has financially supported President Daniel Ortega and played a role "in corruption and money laundering for the personal gain of the Ortega regime."

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https://www.npr.org/2019/04/18/714552854/trump-administration-announces-measures-against-cuba-venezuela-and-nicaragua

2019-04-18 12:57:00Z
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North Korea doesn't want Mike Pompeo involved in nuclear talks - CBS This Morning

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpVP09gbA1g

2019-04-18 11:34:13Z
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North Korea wants Pompeo removed from nuclear talks - Aljazeera.com

North Korea wants United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo replaced with someone "more careful and mature" in talks over its banned nuclear programme, a senior official told state media, hours after the country announced a missile test.

Describing Pompeo as "reckless" the foreign ministry said a summit in Vietnam earlier this year showed that talks could go wrong "whenever Pompeo pokes his nose in".

The April meeting in Hanoi between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump collapsed after the US president reportedlygave Kim a document demanding that North Korea transfer its nuclear arsenal and weapons fuel to the US.

The model proposed was one that Pompeo and US National Security Adviser John Bolton had supported. 

"I am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled," Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the ministry's Department of American Affairs said, according to the official KCNA news agency.   

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"Therefore, even in the case of possible resumption of the dialogue with the US, I wish our dialogue counterpart would be not Pompeo but... (another) person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us."  

It is not the first time North Korea has singled out Pompeo for special criticism.

When the top US diplomat met North Korean officials in Pyongyang in July, he was condemned for his "gangster-like" insistence that the North move towards unilateral disarmament.

Kwon said leader Kim had made clear that the US attitude has to change, adding that Pompeo was standing in the way of a resumption of talks.  

"We cannot be aware of Pompeo's ulterior motive behind his self-indulgence in reckless remarks; whether he is indeed unable to understand words properly or just pretending on purpose," he said.

'New weapon tested'

Thursday's attack on Pompeo came hours after KCNA announced Kim had supervised the test-firing of a new "tactical-guided weapon" with a "powerful warhead".

It also comes after satellite imagery suggested heightened activity at a nuclear test site.

Wednesday's test was "conducted in various modes of firing at different targets," KCNA reported, adding that Kim described its development as one "of very weighty significance in increasing the combat power of the People's Army".

The report gave no details of the weapon.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US state department official, told Al Jazeera that it was a "tactical weapon and not a missile".

"North Korea is maybe exaggerating a bit in order to get America's attention and that's what it is all about," said Fitzpatrick.

"Kim would like to make Trump think again about a deal that might be in the interest of both countries [following the failed Vietnam summit]."

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Earlier in the week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US monitor, said activity had been detected at Yongbyon, the North's main nuclear testing facility.

The think-tank said evidence suggested Pyongyang may be reprocessing radioactive material into bomb fuel.

Kim's Hanoi summit with Trump, the second between the two men, ended abruptly, with North Korea later protesting that the US was being unreasonable.

Since then, North Korea has said it is mulling options for its diplomacy with the US, and Kim said last week he was open to talks with Trump only if Washington came with the "proper attitude".

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2019-04-18 10:55:00Z
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India election 2019: Voters head to the polls (again) - CNN

Puducherry, an administrative territory on India's southeast coast, is heading to polls today.

Known as a union territory, Puducherry is one of seven across India. But it's only one of two -- including New Delhi -- that has been provided a special status and can elect its own legislative assembly.

However, all of its administration is largely controlled by the federal government.

Puducherry, formerly known as Pondicherry, is a former French exclave. It was formed out of the four former colonies of French India in 1962.

The region provides one seat to the Indian Parliament and has a population of over 250,000.

In the general elections held in 2014, the territory had set up over 900 polling stations and 740,000 votes were cast.

The other six union territories are western Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh -- capital of the northern states of Punjab and Haryana -- NCT Delhi, the tropical archipelago of Lakshadweep, and the Andman and Nicobar Islands far out in the Andaman Sea.

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https://www.cnn.com/india/live-news/india-election-latest-april-18-intl/index.html

2019-04-18 10:07:00Z
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India election 2019: Voters head to the polls (again) - CNN

Puducherry, an administrative territory on India's southeast coast, is heading to polls today.

Known as a union territory, Puducherry is one of seven across India. But it's only one of two -- including New Delhi -- that has been provided a special status and can elect its own legislative assembly.

However, all of its administration is largely controlled by the federal government.

Puducherry, formerly known as Pondicherry, is a former French exclave. It was formed out of the four former colonies of French India in 1962.

The region provides one seat to the Indian Parliament and has a population of over 250,000.

In the general elections held in 2014, the territory had set up over 900 polling stations and 740,000 votes were cast.

The other six union territories are western Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh -- capital of the northern states of Punjab and Haryana -- NCT Delhi, the tropical archipelago of Lakshadweep, and the Andman and Nicobar Islands far out in the Andaman Sea.

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https://www.cnn.com/india/live-news/india-election-latest-april-18-intl/index.html

2019-04-18 10:00:00Z
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