WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed one of the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., to answer questions about his contacts with Russia, two congressional sources said on Wednesday.

The panel is seeking to question Trump Jr. about congressional testimony he gave in September 2017 to the Senate Judiciary Committee which was subsequently contradicted in public testimony by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, one of the sources said.

During his Judiciary Committee appearance, the source said, Trump Jr. was asked about the extent of his involvement in a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

“Like I said, I was peripherally aware of it, but most of my knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about it over the last few ... weeks,” Trump Jr. told the committee, according to an official transcript.

In testimony before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, however, Cohen, who began serving a federal prison sentence earlier this week, said he briefed Trump family members “approximately 10 times” about the Moscow Trump Tower project, and that Donald Junior and his sister Ivanka were among the family members he briefed.

A Senate Intelligence Committee spokeswoman declined to discuss details of its long-running investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

A lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by David Alexander, Chris Reese and James Dalgleish)

A perk of being president for Barack Obama was receiving advance screeners of “Game of Thrones,” one of his favorite TV shows.

But Irish actor Liam Cunningham, who plays Davos Seaworth in HBO’s epic fantasy drama, said Obama once actually misplaced the copies he was sent ― and it led to some panicked moments for the show’s bosses.

“He lost the DVDs apparently at one stage, apparently, before they went out, they were all biting their nails,” Cunningham told late-night TV host Conan O’Brien on Tuesday.

“Thrones” showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff revealed in April 2016 that Obama was receiving the special treatment. 

“When the commander-in-chief says, ‘I want to see advance episodes,’ what are you gonna do?” Benioff said at the time.

It’s unclear which season’s screeners were misplaced, if they were ever found or even if Obama continues to receive advance copies (which, given Cunningham’s anecdote, is probably unlikely).

Check out the clip here:

Episode 4 of the final season of “Game of Thrones,” titled “The Last of the Starks,” was all about saying goodbye to key characters ― and hello to Jon Snow’s new accent?

The Season 8 episode starts with a series of emotional farewells for those who fell during the Battle of Winterfell. It’s then that the King in the North says a few words that have people talking:

We’re here to say goodbye to our brothers and sisters, to our fathers and mothers, to our friends, our fellow men and women who set aside their differences to fight together and die together so that others might live. Everyone in this world owes them a debt that can never be repaid. It is our duty and our honor to keep them alive in memory for those who come after us and those who come after them for as long as men draw breath. They were the shields that guarded the realms of men, and we shall never see their like again.

As speeches go, it was pretty solid. However, following the scene, viewers seemed less interested in what Jon was saying and more interested in how he said it.

Is a new voice coming?

Tonally, it did seem there was something different about Jon Snow. However, no one seemed to agree whether Jon was trying to sound more like Ned Stark (Sean Bean), the man who raised him, or, you know, if he just had a cold. (There probably aren’t a lot of throat lozenges in the North.)

HuffPost recently spoke to Samwell Tarly actor John Bradley, who believed it was more of the former.

Bradley told us that all the characters were reaching a “new level of maturity” in Season 8 as the culmination of all of their experiences.

“I think [Jon’s] almost looking for a touchstone in his life for morality of being noble and doing the right thing, being strong and being compassionate, all those things that he learned from Ned Stark, so I think he’s taking on the spirit of Ned Stark,” Bradley said.

He added: “I think there’s something in that speech, and in that moment, of Jon channeling Ned a little bit and letting the Ned in him come through ... All of those great lessons he learned from Ned about being noble, about doing the right thing — he’s taking them onboard.”

Bean told HuffPost in 2018 that his accent was the basis for all the Northern accents on the show, so really Jon’s been talking like Ned this whole time.

But as Bradley explained, with Jon taking on more responsibilities — including the upcoming assault on King’s Landing — he was leaning on Ned even more.

“All of his life, Jon’s followed in the footsteps of Ned and trying to attain that level that made him hold Ned in such high regard. I think that now he knows that he needed Ned more than ever, and he feels like Ned’s living through that speech,” said Bradley. 

Jon probably also needed Ned’s strength when he says his goodbyes to the North in the episode, leaving to lead the Stark army in support of Queen Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). Those goodbyes included an emotional farewell with Sam, which Bradley said felt like “one of those moments where you know somebody is going out of your life.”

“You know this is the last chance you have to tell them what you feel about them and tell them what they mean to you,” he added.

Jon and Sam have said goodbye multiple times on the show before, and, subsequently enjoyed multiple reunions. In Season 5, Sam famously told Olly (Brenock O’Connor) that Jon “always comes back.” But Bradley explained that this goodbye was different.

“It really did feel like two characters who felt they were never going to see each other again, and as a result of that, Sam decides to tell Jon what he means to him, and he says, ‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.’ He’s never said that to him before,” Bradley told us. “He didn’t say that when [Sam] was leaving for the Citadel. He didn’t say that when Jon is going off to fight the battles that he fought because he always assume he was going to see him again.”

With cast members teasing that the battle in the upcoming Episode 5 is even bigger than the one with the army of the dead, there’s a real possibility this was the last time we’ll see Sam and Jon together on screen.

Bradley continued: “I think that’s what happens you look somebody in the eye when you’re about to say goodbye and think this is the last chance I really have to express what an important part this person has played in my life, because if he doesn’t say it now, he’ll never say it.”

The appearance of Meghan Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, in the official royal photo of her daughter’s new-born son has been hailed as symbolic of multicultural Britain.

In the picture shared to announce the royal baby’s name, Doria and the Queen can be seen smiling adoringly down at Archie Harrison, held by a beaming Duchess of Sussex.

The Duke of Edinburgh also beamed happily at his great grandson in the snap, who is seventh in line to the throne and their eighth great-grandchild.  

It was Doria’s appearance as the royal baby’s grandmother that captured the attention of many, with some likening it to when Michelle Obama broke new ground as America’s first black First Lady.

Patrick Vernon OBE, a prominent campaigner during the UK’s Windrush scandal, said that it reflected the royal family’s embrace of “modernity”.

“The presence of the mother is significantly important as it reminds the public and the royal family there is black in the Union Jack,” he told HuffPost UK.

“Britain is a multicultural and secular society - and Meghan and Harry reflect a new modernity to the royal family.

“When people write the history books in the future...historians cannot erase us from the history of Britain again. Like all black mothers, she’ll play an important role in nurturing and giving her grandson a sense of identity and empowerment.”

Doria, 62, is a yoga instructor who was born in Ohio, United States, to an antique dealer father and her mother, a nurse.

After finishing school, she worked as a make-up artist and met her ex-husband, Thomas Markle, who was a Hollywood lighting director at the time. 

The couple married in 1979; Meghan was born two years later but the marriage fell apart when Meghan was six-years-old.

Olivette Otele, who recently became the UK’s first black, female history professor, said though the photograph’s symbolism will “not right the wrongs of the past” it is significant.

She told HuffPost UK: “Meghan Markle mentioned her mother when she talked about her baby being introduced to the Queen; she didn’t have to.

“Her African-American mother was among the women who she said inspired her and that child will most likely have a loving grand mother around in many ways - as well as one who understands the struggle, history, resilience and power of people of African descent.”

The cultural significance was seized by many on social media.

Sunday Times journalist Grant Tucker tweeted: “When the Queen ascended to the throne the last remnants of the British Empire were still brutalising many on the African continent. 65 years later that same woman looks down upon her great-grandson, alongside his African-American grandmother. Such an historic photograph.” 

@HowAboutBeth wrote: “my heart just burst, thanks for this one. protect doria ragland at all costs!”

Reacting to the photograph, writer @KathleenNB tweeted: “Doria in colour! No one else matters!”

Solicitor @KayReneeESQ posted: “I love seeing Doria Ragland there with Duchess Meghan for the birth of her first child. Like Michelle Obama bringing her mom to the White House, nothing can keep a Black woman from her baby [...].”

US reporter Robbin Simmons wrote: “Baby Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor meets the Queen & Duke...aka the Great Grandparents. Grandmother Doria Ragland they’re looking on. Can’t help but think of Princess Diana at these moments.”

@Erikk_the_Dane2 wrote: “This is such an endearingly awesome and iconic photo. It’s great that Meghan’s mother was also apart of the proceedings when her HM the Queen and Prince Phillip met their great-grandson. This makes the moment even more heartwarming and special.”

A user, known as @ulogo, tweeted: “What a wonderful feeling for Meghan’s mum to see your grandson the Prince....bet 37 years ago she never imagined that her grandson could have a claim as 7th in line to sit on the Iron throne in GB.....well played GoT Doria.”

Baby Sussex, whose name was revealed to the world after the family-of-three posed for photos for the first time, was born at 5.26am on Monday.

Harry and Meghan could not hold back their smiles, with a delighted Harry calling the baby “our own little bundle of joy”.

NEW DELHI — With India’s general election inching toward the finish line, the battle for one seat in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh is being closely watched to see whether the scion of the country’s most important modern political dynasty can retain his seat and revive his party’s fortunes.

Planet Earth has been put on red alert by hundreds of leading scientists who have warned that humanity faces an existential threat within decades if the steep decline of nature is not reversed.

The conclusions of the greatest-ever stock-taking of the living world, published on Monday, show that ecosystems and wild populations are shrinking, deteriorating or vanishing completely, and up to 1 million species of land and marine life could be made extinct by humans’ actions if present trends continue.

Food, pollination, clean water and a stable climate all depend on a thriving plant and animal population. But forests and wetlands are being erased worldwide and oceans are under growing stress, says the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the United Nations’ expert nature panel, in the landmark global assessment report. The three-year study, compiled by nearly 500 scientists, analyzed around 15,000 academic studies that focused on everything from plankton and fish to bees, coral, forests, frogs and insects, as well as drawing on indigenous knowledge.

If we continue to pollute the planet and waste natural resources as we have been doing, it won’t just affect people’s quality of life but will lead to a further deterioration of earth’s planetary systems, said the IPBES scientists.

“The essential, interconnected web of life on Earth is getting smaller and increasingly frayed. This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the world,” said professor Josef Settele, a research ecologist and co-chair of the 1,800 page report, the summary of which was agreed to by 132 governments meeting in Paris this weekend, including the U.S.

The scale and rapid speed of this decline of nature is unprecedented in human history and is likely to continue for at least 50 years, say the authors of the global study, but can still largely be turned around if governments, businesses and individuals urgently commit to working together to conserve and restore nature, and to use fewer natural resources better.

It will require a concerted worldwide effort to change the way we live, said IPBES chair Sir Robert Watson, a former chief scientist at NASA who has also worked with the U.K. government. 

“The whole world is focused on climate change but loss of biodiversity is just as important,” said Watson. “You can’t deal with one without the other. There is a recognition now that biodiversity is an environmental issue, but it’s also about economics and development, too. We have to reform the economic system.”

The global assessment report, which will not be published in full until later this year (only the conclusions have been released), is unique among governmental biodiversity studies because it identifies both the direct drivers of nature’s losses ― such as climate change, agricultural expansion, pollution and the exploitation of oceans and forests ― and the underlying causes.

These indirect drivers are more controversial and include world population, which has doubled since 1970 (from 3.7 billion to 7.6 billion people), the tenfold increase in global trade over the last five decades, the sheer amount of goods that people now buy in rich countries, as well as supply chains, the endless pursuit of economic growth, damaging subsidies and the sharp growth of new technologies, all of which put demands on natural resources.

Unless both direct and indirect drivers are addressed simultaneously, there is little hope of the transformational change needed to avert a planetary crisis, said global assessment lead author Kai Chan, professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

“The present system [of environmental protection] has not worked well enough. Governments must get serious about reining in the power of business to regulate itself. We must also focus on supply chains. At present, nature is undermined every time we buy something through the raw materials used or the way goods are produced,” he said.

“Few governments fully understand the magnitude of the problems we face. Most deny the reality of the existential threat we face,” Chan added.

The global assessment report also shows:

• Urban areas have more than doubled in size since 1992, and 100 million hectares of tropical forest were lost from 1980 to 2000.

• Around 25% of animal and plant species are threatened, and around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades if no action is taken.

• The current rate of species extinction is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years.

• Nearly half the live coral cover on coral reefs has been lost since the 1870s, with losses in recent decades accelerating due to climate change.

• Two-thirds of the oceans are under stress, and over 85% of wetlands area has been lost.

• The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events have increased in the past 50 years, while the global average sea level has risen by between 6 and 8 inches since 1900.

• Climate change is projected to become increasingly important as a direct driver of changes in nature and its contributions to humanity in the next decades.

• There are around 2,500 conflicts over fossil fuels, water, food and land currently occurring worldwide.

The global assessment report is a critical piece of science, Joyce Msuya, acting executive director of the U.N.’s Environment Program, told HuffPost. “It is a reminder that nature is not a luxury but is the building block of economic growth, food security, livelihoods and health. It tells us there is a window of opportunity to change track.”

The authors collectively call for bold, far-reaching economic and social changes, including paying for large-scale ecological restoration of degraded lands, and strengthening international targets to control climate change and biodiversity loss.

NGOs are among those echoing the call for major, transformative changes. “We must end this war against nature. We must eat less meat, which takes up most agricultural land at the expense of nature, and we must stop treating our oceans like a waste dump while also exploiting their resources to the point of collapse,” said John Sauven, director of Greenpeace.

The good news, said Watson, is that governments have accepted the report. “They know the problem. They cannot disagree with the evidence because they have signed off on it. Now we need action.”

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President Donald Trump was perhaps the single greatest loser of money from 1985 to 1994, a bombshell New York Times investigation into his tax returns found Tuesday. But despite but the $1.17 billion he bled out on failed casinos, hotels and retail space during that time, he spent the decade telling Americans — the people who would one day elect him as their president — that he was a resounding success. 

“There is no one my age who has accomplished more,” he boasted to Newsweek for a cover story in 1987, a year his business losses compounded to $4.5 million.

By that time, Trump had already been self-mythologizing about the basis of his wealth for years. “Some people have an ability to negotiate,” he told The Washington Post in 1984. “It’s an art you’re basically born with. You either have it or you don’t.”

Though Trump has long characterized himself as being self-made and claimed he only received $1 million from his father to launch his empire, investigations into his early earnings show he actually received about $413 million in 2018 dollars from his father, who repeatedly deployed financial safety nets to his son while helping him engage in lucrative tax schemes.

The same year Trump gave that interview to Newsweek, he released “Trump: The Art Of The Deal,” a memoir and business advice book that was integral in launching his career in the public eye. He began working on the book with a co-author in 1985. That same year, Trump’s business losses had mounted to $51.4 million.

The book ― the first of several business advice works he’d go on to publish ― helped make Trump a fixture on various talk shows. In a sit-down with David Letterman in 1988, a year Trump’s compiled losses totaled $46.6 million, Trump smiled along with the raucous laughter from the audience when Letterman asked him whether there was “any way a guy like you could go broke.”

“I would like to think that I could weather most [disasters],” Trump said, adding, “I think it’s a great time to have cash.”

Trump portrayed similar stability during a 1989 interview with The Chicago Tribune.

“Vision is my best asset. I know what sells. I know what people want,” he continued ― a self-assessment he’d make again in later interviews. 

“Even if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I won’t lose a penny,” he mused. 

He was drowning in $90.3 million in losses by that year, and the worst was still yet to come. Trump’s financial losses reached stunning lows in 1990, when his business losses mounted to $400.3 million. 

Nevertheless, he waxed philosophical about what important role models rich men like him were to the average Joe during a lengthy interview with Playboy that year. 

“The working man likes me because he knows I worked hard and didn’t inherit what I’ve built,” Trump said, stretching the truth about his own success. “Hey, I made it myself; I have a right to do what I want with it.”

When asked why he flaunts his wealth so much, Trump said he sees himself as an inspiration of wealth to others. 

“A display is a good thing,” he said. “It shows people that you can be successful. It can show you a way of life ... It’s very important that people aspire to be successful. The only way you can do it is if you look at somebody who is.”

He also offered up what’s perhaps one of his most Trumpian adages to date: “Rich people are great survivors.” 

By 1991, when his losses over the years totaled $664.3 million, Trump appeared to be struggling to keep up the charade as critics worried his Trump Palace project, a 55-story condominium building he was constructing in Manhattan, would flounder like his other failed projects. 

He responded, the Times found, by buying out advertisements calling the project “the most financially secure condominium on the market today” and promising that “smart money says there has never been a better time.”

The Times’ bombshell report only offers a glimpse at one decade of Trump’s finances, which it obtained from a source “who had legal access to it,” the paper said. In a break with longstanding precedent, the president has not voluntarily released any of his federal tax returns and has not cooperated with House Democrats over their request that he release them. 

Lawmakers in 19 states have introduced legislation that would require Trump to release them if he wants to appear as a candidate on the 2020 ballot. 

NEW DELHI — Two cows were found dead in a park in east Delhi’s Trilokpuri on Wednesday, leading to tension in the communally-sensitive area following which police has stepped up security.

Police were informed by a dairy owner at 6 am that two of his cows were lying dead in Sanjay Jheel Park opposite Kotla village, said a senior police officer.

Due to lack of enough space, the dairy owner would usually leave his cows in the park where they used to gaze. However, when the dairy owner visited the park in the morning, he found that two of them were missing, police said.

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Later, he found the two cows dead in the park following which he informed police, the officer said.

When police reached the spot, they found that the two cows had been killed while others were safe.

According to the dairy owner’s son, “Our neighbour informed us around 5:30 am Wednesday that two cows were lying in the park with severe injuries.”

“When we reached the spot, we found the two carcasses. We immediately called police and informed them about the incident,” he said.

The dairy owner’s son said his family was in the dairy business for the last 40 years and they had 15 cows.

“Nothing like that happened before,” he said.

The bodies were sent for autopsy to find the cause of death, the officer said.

A case has been registered under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code against unidentified persons, he said, adding additional security has also been put in place as it is a communally sensitive area.

A local said, “We got to know about the incident around 6 am. Police reached the spot on time and swiftly took away the carcasses for post-mortem.”

There are no CCTV cameras in the area, police said, adding they are using local intelligence.

Taking serious note of the killing of two cows in Trilokpuri, Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) chairman Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner warning him that miscreants may try to use the incident to trigger violence ahead of May 12 polling in the city.

The DMC chairman asked the police to ensure peace and tranquillity in the area and arrest the criminals involved in the incident.

BENGALURU, Karnataka—When you call a doctor using the Practo app, the company makes a recording of the conversation that can be accessed through a Web-based platform, with the recording saved on servers maintained by the company.

“We did not know that this information was being saved,” said Dr Abhishek Vijayakumar, a cosmetic/ plastic surgeon practicing in Bengaluru.

“We had a dispute about some billing and then one of Practo’s representatives came over to our office and showed us the dashboard which had recordings of all our calls,” he added. “I was shocked that this was available, and he told me that this can be accessed by Practo for dispute resolution.”

Is Practo secretly tracking the medical data of users that install the popular application? A viral WhatsApp message circulating between doctors alleged that Practo was using patient data for advertising medicine delivery, misusing records maintained by doctors. HuffPost India tracked down the messages to their origin—a blog post made by Vijayakumar, who then showed us the Practo dashboard. The allegations were later denied by the company.

However, at a time when there is no Indian law to protect private medical data, this is a question that needs to be asked not just about Practo, but any other company offering tech solutions to healthcare while harvesting vast amounts of user data. 

Many companies invariably point to the reams of fine print contained in the terms and conditions governing app usage, but users often do not appreciate just how intrusive data gathering has become.

Worse, while so-called disrupters in other sectors claim to be reducing costs, apps like Practo might just increase the cost of doctors appointments by charging doctors a flat fee for every patient who books an appointment through the app.

Today, with over 100,000 listed doctors and reportedly 50 million appointments across over 50 cities in India, as well as Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore, Practo is acquiring a scale that can prove influential in cities like Bengaluru, which has become a sort of unsupervised laboratory for many Indian startups.

Around the world, medical records are hugely insecure and very highly lucrative. In India too, as electronic medical records (EMR) become more common, this data is up for grabs, and Practo is simply the biggest and most visible company providing health related services.

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A Practo spokesperson said that the dashboard is only for doctors to check calls in case of any dispute, and that this information is encrypted so Practo can’t hear what you’re saying to your doctor. However, when you use Practo to place a call, there isn’t typically any notice (written or verbal) that the call will be recorded.  

Inside the ecosystem

Practo is one of the earliest success stories in India’s health-tech sector. The company has reportedly raised $243 million over five funding rounds, and is now expanding into other countries.

Practo has a few of different services which include a listings business, where doctors are listed on the platform in the way that Zomato lists restaurants. You can search by specialisation, symptoms, look for doctors nearby, or which ones offer online bookings, and so on.

You can specify whether you want a male or female doctor, whether you’re looking for allopathy, Ayurveda, or homeopathy, and how much the fee should be. Some listings are sponsored, and shown at the top of the results, but doctors can get listed for free, and patients do not pay to use the app. The app charges doctors for every patient who comes to them through Practo. The costs vary based on Practo’s internal calculations that include the doctor’s specialisation, and the going rate for medical services.

The other vertical is Practo Ray, the company’s medical practice management system, which gives doctors features like appointment reminders, online payments, and digital record keeping for medical and financial data that the industry calls electronic medical records or EMRs.

There’s a growing ecosystem of EMR and practice management companies, medicine delivery companies that ask for scans of medical prescriptions, or offer prescriptions online, and so build a detailed medical history of each patient over time. Several of these apps also connect patients with doctors.

One app that HuffPost India has written about is Doxper, an EMR app that uses a special pen with a tiny embedded camera that automatically digitises prescriptions that doctors write on a special paper provided by the company. These prescriptions are then stored on Doxper’s proprietary servers.

Doxper says it is committed to the privacy of patients, but its terms of service warn that it will hold customer data indefinitely, and that people should not expect that all of their personally identifiable information shall be completely removed even if a user deletes their account.

According to startup tracker Tracxn, there are 2,716 companies active in the health-tech space, of which Practo is the biggest. Curefit, which includes online mental health platform MindFit, fitness centres under CultFit, and healthy food delivery via Eat Fit, is the second largest, followed by medicine delivery apps Netmeds and Pharmeasy. In fifth place is MedGenome, which offers end-to-end clinical genomics services.

Who’s responsible for the patient’s data?

Practo’s growing scale is making some doctors, including Vijayakumar, uneasy. The clinic he practices at—Healios—is in a quiet residential neighbourhood with single story homes, and temples on many corners. It’s a far cry from startup hubs like Koramangala and HSR Layout, but tech companies have made their presence felt in this old corner of the city too—there’s a number of startups on the same road as Healios now.

“Practo started off as a very good value provider, but over the years, its only focus is on making money. They are charging doctors ridiculous fees, even a missed call to the clinic is charged to us, and now they’re also taking patient data for their advertising,” Vijayakumar said.

At his clinic, Vijayakumar logged into the Practo system, and showed a dashboard that lists all calls that come to the clinic from the app. To demonstrate his point, he clicked on a recording of a call that had come earlier in the day, playing just a few seconds to make it clear that this is a real patient calling in, with questions about their condition. These are all available through the Internet, and Vijayakumar said they are a risk to patients’ privacy.

Medical data is immensely valuable. And in the absence of a Personal Data Protection law—something that has been hanging in abeyance for almost a year now, since the Srikrishna Committee submitted its draft bill—there’s little that can be done to protect yourself.

Adam Tanner, a fellow at Harvard’s institute for quantitative social science and author of a new book on the topic, Our Bodies, Our Data, said in an interview with the Guardian that patients generally don’t know that their information—such as diseases, or surgeries—is being bought and sold. This is being anonymised and aggregated, but that isn’t necessarily a guarantee of privacy.

“The problem over time is that as you have more and more information, there’s more and more about people who might be,” Tanner said. In other words, when there’s more anonymous data available, it’s easier to circumvent privacy and identify the people with their data.

Vijayakumar also argued that Practo’s latest business offering, Practo Prime, which doctors can sign up for to increase their visibility on the app, involves high charges that have forced the clinic to raise its fees for all patients.

“The patients think that we are being greedy, but really, if I have to pay a certain amount to Practo because they think this is what a cosmetic surgeon charges, then I have to raise my fee also,” he said.

‘False and misleading Internet rumours’

Practo has denied all the allegations as completely baseless. In a blog post titled “Practo’s reponse to false and misleading Internet rumours”, the company stated that there is no truth to the claim that it sells customer data. All patient data, Practo said, is encrypted and Practo is compliant with the American Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which ensures the data privacy of medical information.

“Since the time Practo was founded, we have been very cautious about how to treat user data, and it is one of the core tenets of the company. Shashank [Practo’s co-founder] has always been very clear about this,” a Practo spokesperson told HuffPost India.

“This is just something that comes up every year or so, one or two doctors will be unhappy,” the spokesperson added. “But if you look at the remaining thousands of doctors who are very happy with Practo, you know that this is not a genuine problem.”

On the question of doctors getting lower ratings and being shown less prominently, the spokesperson added, “the feedback system is 100% based on what the users tell us after each visit to the doctor. We don’t put in anything there, it’s entirely what the patients are saying.”

On social media though, some people have raised doubts, asking why Vijayakumar continues to be a Practo customer, if he is so concerned about the company’s ethical practices.

Vijayakumar however said that Practo’s scale meant, doctors don’t have a choice about being on the platform anymore. Given how quickly his message went viral, circulating in doctors groups and showing up on Twitter as well, he may be right. There appears to be a certain amount of discontent between doctors and Practo, even if the company points to surveys it has done with doctors to ensure that they’re satisfied.

One Bengaluru-based doctor that we spoke to, who didn’t want to be named, said that Practo’s requirements have become very onerous. “When you sign up for Prime, you also deposit money in a wallet, which automatically deducts as the charges take place. You have to put down a a lakh, and then they cut Rs 200 every time a patient visits.”

Echoing one of the points that Vijayakumar made, she also added that doctors that pay up for Prime are shown much more prominently in the search results, which can mean that a newcomer to the field might show up before eminent doctors do.

Dr Joyeeta Basu, co-founder of Doctor’s Hub in Gurgaon, pointed tweeted: “Practo was very good and easy to use earlier. While it is still easy to use, too many changes in the software causes problems , they divert traffic.”

Chennai-based Dr Bruno Mascarenhas also said that Practo’s listing platform causes controversy among doctors, and that there is a disconnect between the company’s customer care, technical, and sales teams. “In my opinion, this [Practo] is value for money,” he wrote. “If they get rid of the listing business and concentrate only on their Ray [Practice Management Software] they have a big and bright future.”

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the plea of former BSF constable and Samajwadi Party candidate Tej Bahadur Yadav against rejection of his nomination from Varanasi.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the plea saying, “We don’t find any merit to entertain this petition.”

Yadav had moved the top court challenging the decision of the Returning Officer (RO) to reject his nomination papers, saying it was intended to “give walkover” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is also contesting from Varanasi.

The RO had on 1 May rejected the nomination papers of Yadav, who was dismissed from BSF in 2017 after he posted a video online complaining about the food served to the troops.

The poll panel official held that Yadav failed to furnish a certificate as mandated under the Representation of Peoples (RP) Act to the effect that he has not been “dismissed for corruption or disloyalty to the state”.

Yadav has sought setting aside of RO’s decision and the apex court’s nod to contest elections from high-profile Varanasi seat where poll is slated to take place on 19 May, the last phase of the election.

The Samajwadi Party had initially fielded Shalini Yadav as its candidate to contest against Modi and later nominated the sacked BSF jawan.

(With PTI inputs)

Archie, meet Twitter. Twitter, meet Archie.

Just seconds after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced that their new son’s name was Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, Twitter users were ready with some royally good jokes. 

Most of the tweets were understandably “Riverdale”-themed: 

One made bald jokes about Harry’s and Prince William’s lack of hair: 

Of course, others made the joke that “Harrison” was a reference to young Archie being “Harry’s son” (keep in mind, Prince Harry’s real name is Henry). 

A Kentucky teenager who filed a lawsuit after being banned from school activities for refusing to get the chickenpox vaccine has contracted the disease, his attorney said.

Jerome Kunkel, 18, whose lawsuit against the Northern Kentucky Health Department in March was rejected by a circuit judge last month, first showed signs of the disease last week. He returned to school on Wednesday, his attorney Christopher Wiest said.

“We knew that that was going to happen,” Wiest told HuffPost of Kunkel contracting the highly contagious disease that often provides immunity after contraction. “We knew that the ban was going to do nothing except spread this incident out over months instead of weeks.”

Kunkel had cited a religious exemption for not receiving the vaccine after chickenpox broke out at his Catholic school, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School and Assumption Academy, in Walton earlier this year. 

The Varicella zoster vaccine, which is administered to prevent the chickenpox virus, was derived from the cell lines of two fetuses that were aborted in the 1960s. The use of aborted fetuses is immoral and goes against his religious beliefs, Kunkel argued.

This view is shared by the majority of Kunkel’s school, where 82 percent of the students or their parents have appealed for a religious exemption from being vaccinated, Wiest stated in his appeal to a judge.

Asked how Kunkel may have contracted the disease, Wiest said he believes the high school senior got it from church activities, which he was not banned from attending.

“A week and a half ago he helped serve mass and I have no doubt that through that is where he contracted it,” he said. About half of the 24 students that Wiest said he is representing from Kunkel’s school have also contracted the disease over the last couple weeks, he added.

“Nobody died, there were no complications,” he said while sharing his view that the ban was meaningless since it didn’t stop all interactions where transmission is likely.

“It’s not just unconstitutional, it was also just stupid,” he said.

Had Kunkel, who has been out of school since March 15, been allowed to attend classes and his extracurricular activities amid the outbreak, Wiest argued that he would have contracted the disease long ago and been done with it.

The Northern Kentucky Health Department in a statement on Wednesday called Wiest’s encouragement to have the disease spread “alarming and disappointing.”

“Wiest’s comments are dismissive of the severity of this virus, and his recent announcement that he is advising his clients to actively contract the virus so that they can become individually immune to it is deeply concerning to the Northern Kentucky Health Department,” the department said in a statement.

It reasoned that though those who contract and survive the disease are likely to gain future immunity to it, they may also spread it to others who are more vulnerable to it, including infants, adolescents, pregnant women and individuals with weakened immune systems.

“Encouraging the spread of an acute infectious disease in a community demonstrates a callous disregard for the health and safety of friends, family, neighbors, and unsuspecting members of the general public,” the statement continued.

It takes about two weeks for someone to develop chickenpox after exposure. They become contagious to others one to two days before a rash appears and until all of the lesions have scabbed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Each year the vaccine prevents more than 3.5 million cases, 9,000 hospitalizations, and 100 deaths in the U.S., the CDC says.

“Chickenpox can be serious and can lead to severe complications and death, even in healthy children,” the health agency’s website warns. “There is no way to tell in advance how severe your child’s symptoms will be. So it is not worth taking the chance of exposing your child to someone with the disease.”

BANKURA/PURULIA — Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is insulting the Constitution by saying that she is not ready to accept him as the prime minister of the country.

Addressing an election rally at Bankura, Modi said “Didi (Banerjee) is publicly saying that she is not ready to accept the country’s PM as the head of the nation, but she feels proud in acknowledging Pakistan Prime Minister as that country’s prime minister.”

He said that out of anxiety of losing the general elections, the chief minister is insulting the Constitution.

The PM said that Banerjee had not received telephone calls when he tried to contact her in the aftermath of cyclone Fani.

“She did not take calls from me during the cyclone. 

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The central government wanted to sit with officers of the state to discuss the situation, but didi did not allow that too,” Modi said.

Banerjee had said in a rally on 6 May that she does not accept Narendra Modi as the prime minister of the country describing him as the “expiry PM” and that she will talk to the new prime minister after the election results.

“The chief minister is not interested in the betterment of the state, but that of her family, nephew and tolabaj (extortionists) of her party,” the Prime Minister said.

Modi said that how much the TMC supremo is worried can be understood by the language being used by her. “She is now talking about stones and slaps against me,” the PM said.

“I am used to abuses, I have now got the ability to digest abuses from dictionaries from around the world,” he said.

The Prime Minister claimed that Banerjee has destroyed Bengal in her “lust for power” and now she is bent on destroying it further in the “fear” of losing power.

He said that the government of the state is being run by the TMC in name only, while the actual business is conducted by the syndicates.

He claimed that everybody — from teachers to intellectuals, businessmen to poor people — are in distress owing to the rule of extortionists in the state.

“Didi’s tolabaj are not leaving poor MNREGA workers, the extortionists are even taking away their job cards,” Modi said. 

He said the Centre sends money so that people get food grains at low prices, but these are also being looted by the extortionists of TMC.

He alleged that TMC leaders are making money from open cast coal mines, while labourers are not getting their wages.

“Didi gets angry when when Modi talks of these atrocities of TMC, but Modi is not worried about her anger, because the love of 130 crore populace of the country is with him,” the PM said.

He said that the chief minister should rather be worried about the anger of those who were duped by chitfund companies, young people who are jobless despite being qualified and government employees who are not getting adequate DA and salaries.

He claimed that Banerjee “should worry about the Kali, Durga bhakts in the state who have to perform puja with fear in their minds.”

While the BJP has repeatedly accused the TMC government in the state of putting impediments in performance of religious rituals by the Hindus, the chief minister has vehemently denied the allegations, saying that every religion is treated equally in West Bengal.

Modi alleged that Banerjee has concern for illegal immigrants, but not for the indigenous adivasi people of the state.

“You have seen that when the brave sons of the country killed Pakistan’s terrorists in their own country, she demanded that the bodies of the extremists be shown as proof,” he said.

The PM promised pucca houses for every poor, adivasi, dalit and backward family in the state by 2022.

He also promised that by 2022, every household in the country will have cooking gas connection.

Speaking at a rally in Purulia, the prime minister said that opposition leaders are “frustrated” after five phases of polling as it is evident that the “BJP is coming back to power.”

Claiming that Banerjee will receive a jolt on 23 May when the counting of the seven-phase general elections will be held, he said, it will commence the end of the TMC’s rule in West Bengal.

He said that the illegal immigrants who have been made TMC cadres, and troubling the daughters of Bengal will be identified and acted upon.

“I heard that Mamata didi wants to slap Modi; I respect you, call you didi (elder sister), your slap will be a blessing for me,” the prime minister said.

Furious at being repeatedly termed as a party of ‘tolabaj’ (extortionists) by Modi, the TMC supremo had said on Tuesday that “Narendra Modi should get a tight slap of democracy.”

Reacting to Banerjee’s comment, Modi said in Purulia that the TMC chief should have the guts of slapping the chitfund company operators and extortionists, as that would absolve her of the accusations of being the leader of a “party of Triple T — Trinamool Tolabaj Tax.”

He said that Purulia is rich in natural resources like coal. “But mafias have taken advantage of it and made illegal earnings from it,” Modi said.

“While Didi is engaged in building the career of her nephew, ministers and leaders are involved in scams, and party cadres in extortion. How can the fortunes of the general public of the state improve?” asked Modi.

The name Proust has long had an unusual effect on students of English literature, triggering references to madeleines, irrespective of whether the small cake was traditionally consumed in their homes or not. It certainly wasn’t in Bombay, when I was first introduced to imposing Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, translated haphazardly into English as In Search of Lost Time. I do remember struggling with it though, in part because no one can read all seven volumes without skimming through at least six of them, and also because recollections of a foreigner’s life from childhood to adulthood can be hard going for a person with tenuous connections to 20th-century French aristocracy.

Two decades after putting away my copy, I came across Stéphane Heuet’s graphic adaptation of Swann’s Way, the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, published in English 18 years after first appearing in French. Apparently, there were two definite reactions to the work in Proust’s home country — howls of outrage from critics, and a first print run that sold out. In America, it was referred to as ‘Proust for the people’, and though Heuet has supposedly completed five of the seven volumes since, there has been no follow-up to the first volume in English yet.  

We live in a golden age of publishing where few classics have escaped the graphic novel treatment, with expectedly mixed results. On the one hand, there is an argument that adaptations offer dumbed-down versions of classic literature for lazy readers. On the other, there is the undeniable impact that a classic can sometimes have when transposed to another medium that reveals facets of it in a strange, new light. Who can say, for instance, that Robert Crumb’s adaptation of The Book Of Genesis or Seymour Chwast’s succinct 127-page Divine Comedy doesn’t compel readers to find something new and exciting in the ancient original works?

One of the first things Heuet’s book does is reveals the pillars and arches supporting the narrator’s memories, translator Arnold Goldhammer explains in the introduction. Any reader familiar with the Tintin comics will immediately recognise the influence of Hergé here, and his pioneering ligne claire style of drawing that calls for strong colours and lines with no tones or shading. The effect is startling because so much of Proust’s writing is decidedly abstract. What Heuet manages to do, with his beautifully concise panels, is condense the prose in a manner that highlights the emotional heft of what Proust is aiming for, rather than the dialogue itself. It is the equivalent of a recurring ‘madeleine moment’, where the intensity of a specific quotidian episode or event defines how a panel is designed.

This isn’t to say it’s flawless. Proust’s book is also about a doomed love affair between Swann and Odette de Crécy. Where he takes a microscope to why Odette loses interest and how Swann’s feelings towards her slowly change, Heuet arguably pays more attention to getting the visual setting right. What is lost is the undercurrent of wit. It probably works better in French, but who is to say? 

Another recent graphic adaptation that stood out for me was Miles Hyman’s The Lottery, a bold take on what may possibly be Shirley Jackson’s most compelling short story. Hyman happens to be Jackson’s grandson and writes a beautiful introduction featuring a vivid memory of his grandmother while explaining why he eventually felt brave enough to attempt this. Unlike Proust, Jackson’s story is undeniably more familiar, helped by its brevity and publication closer to our time (it appeared in The New Yorker in 1948). Ironically, this makes Hyman’s task a lot harder, because he is dealing with at least some readers who know the twist at the end of the tale and must sustain their interest nonetheless. 

His adaptation works by being faithful to the text, using Jackson’s dialogue and bringing life to the pictorial, almost cinematic aspect of the tale instead. His panels almost resemble the storyboard of a film. He builds to its shocking climax beautifully, pacing it out with the same skill his grandmother brought to her writing. He also avoids the easy emphasis on gore that could have tempted a less accomplished artist, and focuses firmly on the characters’ emotional states. That the book still manages to raise questions about democracy and human nature is a testament to Hyman’s artistry as much as the power of Jackson’s story to shock over half a century after it first appeared.

If one must consider the question of whether graphic adaptations make literature easier to grapple with, the pros outweigh the cons. Great literature can always be appreciated in the original, and usually is. If, however, a work of art in another medium does compel a reader to seek out its source or even walk away with a gist of what its creator first intended, how is that a bad thing?

Fans posing for pics with Spider-Man at the Disney California Adventure theme park in Anaheim got more of a photo-op than they expected when the stars of the upcoming film crashed the event. 

Footage from the meet and greet shows visitors trying out some spider-poses with what appears to be just a typical friendly neighborhood theme park costumed character. 

When they posed for a group photo, Zendaya, Jake Gyllenhaal and Jacob Batalon ― all of whom co-star in July’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home” ― dashed out to join in. 

And there was still one surprise left: The costumed character turned out to be the film’s star, Tom Holland: 

Others also shared images of the stars at the theme park, which is part of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim: 

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s East Delhi candidate Atishi on Thursday broke down during a press conference where the party accused her BJP rival Gautam Gambhir of circulating a pamphlet containing “obscene and derogatory” remarks against her.

She said she had welcomed Gambhir, a former cricketer, when he entered politics but now the BJP had stooped to an unexpected level.

“I have only one question for Gautam Gambhir. If he is doing this against one woman, what will he do for the lakhs of women in east Delhi who are worried about their safety,” Atishi was quoted as saying by NDTV.

AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, “Never imagined Gautam Gambhir to stoop so low. How can women expect safety if people wid such mentality are voted in?”

BJP has denied the allegations, according to the NDTV report.

Gambhir later tweeted that he will withdraw his candidature if AAP can prove that it was done by him.

AAP spokesperson Akshay Marathe told the TV channel that the party would file a criminal complaint over the publication and distribution of the pamphlet.

(With PTI inputs)

Someone made a royal boo-boo.

The royal family’s official website posted a page devoted to the newborn Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor ― but mistakenly introduced the baby as the “first child of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.” Those two, of course, are Archie’s uncle and aunt, Prince William and the former Kate Middleton.

Archie’s actual parents are the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, aka Prince Harry and the former Meghan Markle.

People on Twitter pointed out the error.

The website has since corrected the mistake, but Twitter had jokes.

Check out the video here:

There have been plenty of devastating turning points in the current final series of Game Of Thrones and one of the most heartbreaking moments (deaths aside) came when Jaime Lannister turned his back on Brienne of Tarth in episode four.

Shortly after bedding Brienne, suggesting he finally viewed her as more than just a pal, Jaime left Winterfell in the dead of the night, only explaining himself and saying goodbye to Brienne when she followed him to the courtyard. 

As he rode away, Brienne – a fan favourite who has consistently been one of the most measured, focussed characters – burst into tears... as did we, to be honest.

And now, the episode’s director David Nutter has revealed the words he got Nikolaj Coster-Waldau to say in order for Brienne (played by Gwendoline Christie) to cry.

We’re warning you now, it’s brutal.

Speaking to Collider, David explained: “When I was shooting Gwendoline’s close-up, what I asked Nikolaj to do is, I asked him to say — after he finished his dialogue — tell her, ‘I don’t love you anymore’.

“And basically, Brienne is such a sensitive person, as is Gwendoline, that’s basically the thing that he’s saying… but he’s not saying it too directly.

“So I basically had him say it off camera and when he did that, she basically lost it completely and that’s the reaction that was actually kind of recorded at that point.”

See what we mean?

There has been debate over Jaime’s motivations in heading back to Cersei, and some fans have claimed he might not be letting Brienne down after all, and could be going back to kill his sister (and fulfil that Valonqar prophecy after all).

Unfortunately, we’ll all just have to wait and see what happens in the final two episodes of the show, which have already been teased by Daenerys Targaryen actress Emilia Clake.

Speaking last week, she claimed the penultimate instalment (which airs on Monday) is “even bigger” than The Long Night, which featured the Battle of Winterfell.

“Find the biggest TV you can,” she urged.

One of the most closely watched electoral battles in 2019 will be Bhopal, where the BJP has fielded terror-accused Pragya Singh Thakur against the Congress’s Digvijaya Singh.

Thakur was inducted into the party in April and named the party’s candidate from saffron bastion Bhopal, a decision that surprised many, as it was the first instance of a major political party fielding a terror accused. 

The 49-year-old is an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, in which 6 people were killed.

While Thakur has claimed she got a ‘clean chit’ in the Malegaon case, she had only been discharged by a court on charges under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the 2008 case. She is still facing trial under other criminal provisions including the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Thakur was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in April 2017 because she was “suffering from breast cancer” and “unable to walk even without support”, according to Firstpost. 

She has alleged Digvijaya Singh conspired to falsely implicate her in the Malegaon blast case and called him an “anti-Hindu leader who called Hindus terrorists”.

Thakur’s candidacy came just weeks after Narendra Modi said Congress had coined the term ‘Hindu terror’. He also said, “In the thousand years of history, not a single incident shows an act of Hindu terrorism.”

After Thakur joined BJP, Modi said she was given a ticket as a symbolic answer to those who called Hindu civilisation ‘terrorist’.

Thakur told PTI that Hindutva and development were synonymous.

“I am waging a Dharmyuddh against those who maligned Sanatan Dharma by coming out with the term ‘Bhagwa Aatankawad’ (saffron terror), sent me to jail and tortured me under the garb of law,” she said.

“Those who conspired to malign the Sanatan Dharm — and Hindutva by coining the term ‘saffron terror’ have acted as anti-national. Their act is anti-religious and anti-national,” she charged.

During her campaign, Thakur has been issued EC notices for claiming that former Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare died in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack because of her “curse” and also for stating that she had participated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.

She was also served a notice after the Congress complained that pamphlets in her favour were distributed while she visited temples during the 72-hour ban  imposed on her by the EC.

She has also made a number of unscientific and bizarre statements including that her cancer was cured by cow urine and other cow products.

(With PTI inputs)