A 24-year-old woman died Thursday while trying to cross a treacherous Alaska river to reach the abandoned bus where Christopher McCandless, the subject of the book and movie “Into the Wild,” starved to death in 1992.

Veramika Maikamava of Belarus was wading through the waist-high water of the Teklanika River near Denali National Park with husband Piotr Markielau when she lost her grip on a rope she was using to steady herself, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The river had been moving especially fast because of recent rainfall.

State troopers said Markielau discovered his wife’s body roughly 75 to 100 feet downriver and reported her death to authorities. The couple had recently married.

According to local radio station KTNA, the Tri-Valley Fire Department and a state trooper arrived on the scene with ATVs and retrieved Maikamava’s body. It has been sent for an autopsy and an investigation is ongoing.

Following the 1996 publication of Jon Krakauer’s book and the 2007 release of the film based on it, numerous hikers have attempted to retrace the steps of McCandless, whose body was found about 19 days after he died while trying to survive alone in the wilderness.

Like Markielau, a Swiss hiker drowned in 2010 while crossing the Teklanika River to find the so-called Magic Bus.

In 2013, three German hikers en route to the bus on the Stampede Trail about 10 miles from Denali National Park had to be rescued upon realizing the river they crossed to get there had become impassable due to fast-moving high water, leaving them stranded.

In 2016, Lynn Macaloon, the park’s acting public information officer, told Vice that she estimated several rescues are required on the trail each year.

On 27 July, Twitter user @hemanthpmc shared a video of an Indian family being caught stealing things from a Bali hotel.

In the embarrassing video, a woman can be seen repeatedly offering to pay them as hotel employees open the family’s bags and take out everything from decorative items to electronics and toiletries. 

Hemanth’s thread left a lot of Indians feeling humiliated by the family’s behaviour. He himself tweeted, “India must start cancelling passports of people who erode our credibility.” 

 While others wondered just how awful the guests must have been to push the “nice” and “humble” Indonesians to the point of investigating their own guests. 

Hemanth even brought up an older tweet from Harsh Goenka, showing that Indian guests aren’t just treated as troublesome in Indonesia, but Switzerland too.

Several Twitter users were so upset by the family’s antics – and the impression others will have of Indian travellers – that they wanted the government to take action against the family. 

While some wanted their passports “marked” others wanted to deploy the most formidable tool in any Indian’s arsenal – shaming through Whatsapp. 

While the Ministry of External Affairs hasn’t said anything about the incident, it’s clear that Indian Twitter’s national pride has taken a hit. 

We’ve all been there – the party’s just getting started... and then your mom calls. 

Just thinking about the interrogation (that’s actually just yelling because in interrogations you might actually get to say something) is making you cringe, right?

As Twitter user @KarnikaKohli pointed out through this edited clip of Arnab Goswami – his phone call style is every Indian mom ever. 

With 10,000 likes and counting, it’s safe to say that Indian Twitter is picking up exactly what Kohli put down. 

Here are some hilarious reactions (and surprising confessions): 

This unlucky soul seems to think even 9pm is a luxury. 

One Twitter came up with a proposition that will definitely lead to alcohol poisoning.  

It wasn’t just people on the receiving end of this phenomenon who are into Kohli’s tweet.

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti even admitted to being a perpetrator! 

 And for all the dozens of men who responded shading their wives for asking about their whereabouts, maybe their better halves will take a cue from Big Little Lies’s Renata instead. 

Mumbai–For Nikkhil Advani nationalism is an inherent feeling and the “Batla House” director believes the term is “misused” a lot today. 

And through his films, the director aims to make people realise the true meaning of loving one’s country. 

“My sense of nationalism is very personal but at the same time, I feel it is a word that is misused a lot today in this whole feeling of patriotism. And if you can correct it somewhere by making a film or whatever then why not you should do that,” Advani told PTI in an interview. 

Elaborating on nationalism being misused, the filmmaker added, “If you don’t dress that way you are nationalistic or if you don’t say this you are anti-patriotic. I think the Constitution allows you to do what you want to do.” 

Advani, whose upcoming film is based on Operation Batla House that took place in 2008, said for the betterment of the nation it is important to focus on the problems which lie within the country. 

“We are quick to blame Pakistan for all our problems. ‘Batla House’ shows the problem lies within our country also. What drew me to the subject was the basic idea that in all the outrage... this is black and this is white, the truth got lost. It is about knowing the truth,” he said. 

It was writer Ritesh Shah, an alumnus of Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, which was closer to the site of the operation, brought the film’s story to Advani.

“Ritesh takes interest in stories of nationalism and stories of socio-political importance in this country. He has a strong opinion about a lot of things be it sexual harassment or rape. 

“He was automatically drawn towards this operation and somebody told him they can give access to police. He did a lot of research before he came to me with the script. I told him I need to read everything as it is so conflicting, there are so many versions.” 

Advani was so much intrigued by the incident that he also started researching on the subject until he was sure he has got everything right. 

“Once we felt we had all the information, we re-looked at the script. There are three versions to this story - what happened on that day; the version that the defence presented in the favour of the students and what the court accepted,” he said. 

John, who has previously collaborated with Advani on “Satyamev Jayate”, is essaying the role of DCP Sanjeev Kumar in the movie.

The “D-Day” director said they have applied for a censor certificate and are hoping for a positive response.

“It is not a question of certification but of cuts. We have taken some bold steps in terms of what we are telling. I can’t give away details. I am sure they will have a point of view. We hope they see it in the perspective of what is to be seen.” 

The film, produced by Advani, Bhushan Kumar and John, will release on Independence Day. The movie also features Ravi Kishan and Mrunal Thakur.

Babies may not be born with a sense of humour, but they’re certainly born with a sense of how to make you laugh. Everything a baby does is hilarious, both to you and to them, something you can easily confirm by watching them laugh at literally everything for no reason, which then, probably, makes you laugh, too.

As if they needed a reason to be even funnier — or creepy, depending on how you look at it — some of the world’s latest little citizens now have full sets of perfect adult teeth.

At least, in digitally altered images, they do. 

Indiana-based photographer Amy Haehl, who is also an ER nurse, combed through a bunch of images she took of newborn babies and, with the permission of their parents, gave them (via Faceapp, of course) teeth.

“I just did it because I thought it was funny and wanted to spread some laughter,” Haehl told HuffPost Canada. “And make people smile … literally.”

Haehl posted the series of photographs on Facebook in an album titled, “If babies had teeth!”, and has since racked up 42,000 shares. Among the comments are people saying things like, “This was so creepy and hilarious,” or, “I’m going to have a talk with their dentist!” 

Whether the images make you incredibly happy or incredibly disturbed, they’re definitely absurd enough to laugh at, and Haehl hopes they achieve a reaction that strays from the cool, detached seriousness it takes today to move through a world filled with enough bad news to make even the funniest babies seem unfunny.

“Sometimes it’s easy to only see politics, negativity and violence in the world,” Haehl told POPSUGAR. “I love to help people see through that as much as I can. I’m a nurse and laughter really is the best medicine!”

Also on HuffPost:

Karnataka assembly speaker K R Ramesh Kumar on Sunday disqualified 14 more rebel MLAs under the anti-defection act till the end of the current term of the assembly in 2023.

The speaker’s ruling came a day ahead of Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa moving the confidence motion in the assembly to prove his majority, after assuming office on Friday.

Of the lawmakers who faced the action, 11 are from the Congress and three from JDS.

“I have used my judicial conscience,” said Kumar, who had earlier disqualified three Congress rebel MLAs on Thursday and said he would make the pronouncement of his decision in the remaining cases in a “couple of days.“

The Congress and JDS, whose government collapsed on Tuesday last after a rebellion by a section of their MLAs, had petitioned the Speaker to disqualify their errant members. 

However, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa expressed confidence about proving majority on Monday, July 29.

He also said that the finance bill prepared by the previous Congress-JD(S) government would be tabled by him in the assembly on Monday, without any changes.

“On Monday hundred per cent I will prove the majority,” Yediyurappa told reporters here.

The finance bill (appropriation bill) needs to be passed “urgently”, as otherwise “we will not be able to draw funds even to pay salaries,” he said.

“So tomorrow after moving the confidence motion,we will first take up the finance bill.

I have not even changed a comma or full stop in it. I will be tabling the finance billprepared by the (previous) Congress-JD(S) government,” he added.

Yediyurappa, who assumed the office of Chief Minister on Friday had announced that he would seek the trust vote on Monday.

The 17 disqualifications won’t impact Yediyurappa’s chances tomorrow. 

The effective strength of the 224-member assembly excluding the Speaker, who has a casting vote in case of a tie, is 207.

The magic figure required will be 104.

BJP, along with the support of one independent, has 106 members, Congress 66 (including nominated), JD(S) 34 and one BSP member, who has been expelled by the party for not voting for the Kumaraswamy government during the trust vote.

The 14-month-old Congress-JDS coalition government headed by H D Kumaraswamy collapsed on Tuesday after losing the vote of confidence in the assembly in a climax to the three-week long intense power struggle. 

(With PTI inputs)

GUWAHATI: A week before July 31 2019, the last date for when the final version of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) was to be published, the Supreme Court of India extended the deadline by a month — prolonging the agony of 4 million residents of Assam who were let off previous drafts and are yet to be counted as Indian citizens. 

For them, the deadline extension has meant another month of hope and fear, of waiting to see if they can resume their lives as free citizens of India or if they must submit themselves to years of litigation, and possibly imprisonment, as the state’s Foreigner Tribunals decide their ultimate fate. 

The Supreme Court’s supervision of the NRC process gives many marginalised residents of  Assam hope that their seemingly unending quest to prove their citizenship shall eventually prove fruitful.  But the Court’s intimate involvement in the minutiae of the NRC process is problematic too. It is, in a sense, the elephant in the room. 

Or as a lawyer remarked, a herd of elephants in the room.   

On paper, the NRC process and the foreigner detention camps are two separate issues: the former is a process to determine citizenship, the latter is part of the state’s infrastructure to deal with Assam’s decades old fear of being overrun by migrants from across the Indo-Bangladesh border. The state periodically forces marginalised communities to prove their citizenship by putting them through a tribunal process, and declares them “foreigners” if they cannot produce enough documents and defend them, to satisfy the state.

In fact, many early supporters of the NRC imagined a process supervised by the SC would assure them of citizenship and stop this everyday harassment of border police and Foreigner Tribunals. 

But the NRC and Foreigner Tribunals continue to be  inextricably linked: Come August 31, those who don’t make it to the NRC are probably looking at spending at some time in these detention camps.

Harsh Mander visited these camps with the National Human Rights Commission and was shocked by the infinite detention of  inmates in inhumane conditions.

Chief Justice Gogoi’s oral remarks, Mander submitted, were evidence of a “subconscious bias” on the part of the Chief Justice. As it turns out, Mander’s petition found Chief Justice Gogoi under siege. On April 20 2019, shortly before Mander filed his petition, Justice Gogoi had been rattled by accusations of sexually harassing a junior court researcher. (Justice Gogoi vehemently denied the charges, and was subsequently cleared by his fellow judges, who denied to make a report of their findings public.)

“A judge says a lot of things to test the waters,” Chief Justice Gogoi continued, dismissing Mander’s request for a recusal. “What was said in a healthy debate was understood by you as an opinion.”

Mander saw things differently. His petition said :

The Statements made by the Hon’ble Judges of the Supreme Court have a ripple effect not just within the judiciary of the country but amongst the public at large and therefore need to be made with responsibility and more gravitas than an off the cuff remark by any other citizen of the country”. 

Mander was hoping to draw the court’s attention to the suffering of those housed in the Assam government’s detention camps. But the court was far more interested in discussing why there weren’t more people in these camps. Over 50,000 people in Assam had been declared foreigners, the court said. Why weren’t they being deported?

And Harsh Mander’s petition – what came of it? 

Chief Justice Gogoi did not recuse himself. 

“Recusal is destruction of the institution,” Chief Justice Gogoi observed. “We will not allow anybody to browbeat this institution!”

The Court removed Mander’s name from the petition and Prashant Bhushan was retained as Amicus Curiae.

Reports of  Justice Gogoi’s comportment in the NRC hearings gives us the impression of a man on a mission. In a hearing where the government asked for a time of two weeks to suspend NRC work during the Lok Sabha elections, he publicly berated the  Ministry of Home Affairs.

“All your efforts from the beginning has been to destroy the  NRC process!” he said. 

This antagonism and tension between the various wings of state and central government  and the judiciary suggests a sense of the complicated dynamic between the various state agencies where the NRC is concerned.  

In such a situation, any questioning or complaint  of the SC’s functioning or a judge’s individual observations, is often perceived as an attack on the judiciary itself. 

One’s subconscious political bias is only one part of the story.

But despite it all, the common man and woman caught up in the judicial nightmare of tribunals and exclusions from NRC lists cling blindly to the words of wisdom Justice Gogoi bestowed on Harsh Mander in the ‘recusal’ petition:

Learn to trust your judges!The day you don’t have faith in your judges , you have had it.

A car in which the survivor of Unnao rape case, her family and lawyer were travelling was hit by an over-speeding truck in Rae Bareli on Sunday, killing two members while leaving her and the advocate critically injured, police said.

Unnao Superintendent of Police Madhav Prasad Verma said the rape survivor, her paternal and maternal aunts along with their advocate met with an accident while on their way to meet her uncle, who is lodged in Rae Bareli jail.

The rape survivor’s maternal aunt succumbed to injuries in a district hospital and the others were transferred to a trauma centre in Lucknow, police said.

BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who is an accused in the rape case, was arrested on April 13 last year.

Days before Sengar’s arrest, the survivor’s father had died in judicial custody due to severe injuries. The case is being investigated by the CBI, which accused Sengar “framing the victim’s father in a false case”.

On Sunday, a relative of the survivor accused Senghar and his associates of planning the accident to threaten the family and stop them from pursuing the case. “Everyone in the village knew they were going to Rae Bareli jail,” said her cousin in Unnao told the Indian Express.

The survivor, in December 2018, had alleged that the family received daily threats against pursuing the case and to withdraw the case against Sengar. 

BJP’s Unnao MP Sakshi Maharaj had met rape accused at the Sitapur district after the Lok Sabha election jail to “thank” him.

Rape survivor critical, advocate on ventilator

UP Congress leader Aradhana Mishra, who went to visit the injured on the directions of Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra told PTI, “The rape survivor is in a very critical condition and the advocate is on ventilator. According to doctors, one person had died on the spot, while another was declared dead upon their arrival at the trauma centre.” 

Quoting eyewitnesses, Rae Bareli Superintendent of Police Sunil Kumar Singh said that an over-speeding truck hit the car carrying the rape survivor.

“There were showers and the truck driver lost control over the vehicle which rammed into the car,” he said.

The truck driver had fled from the spot after the accident.

The Unnao case had come to light after the survivor allegedly attempted self-immolation outside Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s residence. Her mother alleged that Sengar, a four-time MLA who represents Bangermau in the UP Assembly, raped her teenage daughter at his residence in 2017.

Security guards provided for her protection did not accompany survivor

NDTV reports the truck’s driver and owner have been arrested.

The number plate of the vehicle had reportedly been scrubbed with black paint. However, police said they did not have information on this.

“The rape survivor’s family had been provided security, but the gunner had not accompanied them on Sunday. The reason behind it is being probed,” ADG Lucknow Rajeev Krishna said, adding, “The truck involved in the accident has been impounded. It has a Fatehpur district registration plate.”

Verma said on the directives of senior officials, he along with the mother of the rape survivor, three sisters and brother rushed to Lucknow.

The SP also said, “It has come to light that the gunner who usually accompanies the family (of the rape survivor) did not go with them. Why the gunner did not accompany them is being probed, and based on its outcome, action will be initiated accordingly.” 

The accident comes on the same day Union home minister Amit Shah was in the state to attend a government event. At the event, Shah praised UP CM Yogi Adityanath government for improving the law and order situation in the last two years.

“I’m having some girlfriends over for a wine and cheese evening. Would you like to come?”

I was touched to be included in this recent texted invite from a client. Part of me really wanted to go, especially since she’s a lovely person and the majority of my social interaction right now is with my preschooler. But the thought of walking into a group of people I didn’t know and making small talk was overwhelming. 

“Thank you so much for the invitation, but I have plans that night,” I fibbed. At the time I justified it to myself (she didn’t need to know my plans were watching Netflix ― alone), but I still feel terrible about lying. I’m convinced the guilt will be written across my face the next time I see her. 

For the latest news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Many people get excited when they receive an invitation to an event; I get nauseous. Not because of the people involved (usually), but because there are people involved. Although I didn’t learn to identify it as such until the past several years, I have suffered from social anxiety my entire life. 

As a teen and young adult, I used to force myself into uncomfortable social situations even if I was overwhelmed, because I assumed my “shyness” was something I needed to get over. I told myself that the cold sweat, shaking hands, pounding heart, tightened throat, foggy thinking and embarrassingly obvious flushing would surely subside once the ice was broken. Sometimes it did, but more often than not it didn’t, and still doesn’t. 

I’m comfortable with several close friends, but the moment a group grows beyond the borders of my trusted circle, I can feel the anxiety monster stirring to life, rekindling all my deep-seated fears of being judged (and falling short). When this happens, my survival strategy is withdrawing: watching, listening, hugging the periphery of a room and forming lasting bonds with household pets.

People often mistake my relative silence in groups as aloofness, but I’m quiet because I’m weighing every word before I utter it, considering how my contribution to the conversation will be received, terrified it will expose me as the fraud I convince myself that I am.

Even if I seem at ease during an interaction, I will spend days afterward, weeks even, dissecting it, fixating on what I’ve convinced myself were social gaffes ― basically, torturing myself. It’s exhausting. 

Like many people with anxiety, I am high-functioning, and my unease isn’t usually obvious to others (my teaching colleagues used to remark on how calm and serene I always appeared, even though inside I was a roiling mess of angst). I will attend events or enter situations that make me uncomfortable, either for professional reasons, wanting to see friends, or the overwhelming desire to not disappoint or offend others. But I do it at a cost. 

You see, social anxiety can trigger and feed more generalized anxiety for me.  

I’ve “managed” this by forcing myself to ignore it as much as possible and just get on with things. Not a good strategy.

Over the past several years, a lot of “life” happened, with lots of unexpected challenges. Eventually, anxiety consumed me to a point where I couldn’t ignore it anymore and I found myself peering into a dark abyss that chilled me to my soul. I don’t ever, EVER, want to find myself on that precipice again. This experience has taught me that my mental health has to be a priority. It’s not a cost I’m prepared to pay any longer. 

I don’t shun all get-togethers and social interaction. When I’m feeling good, I enjoy connecting with others. I cherish my friendships and appreciate the possibility of new ones. It’s just that some types of interactions are more stressful for me and sometimes, depending on other factors in my life at the time, I need to avoid them in order to continue feeling good. Ninety-nine percent of the time it has nothing to do with the person whose invitation I decline ― a real honest-to-goodness case of, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

So, why the guilt?

I don’t feel guilty for declining invitations if I’m physically sick or injured. So why do I feel ashamed to admit that I’m feeling mentally fragile? When I visited my doctor last year, blubbering out apologies for my uncontrollable panic and weepiness and the fact that I wanted to try anti-anxiety meds, she asked if I would feel bad asking for help with an injured leg. Of course not! 

It feels like there is a tacit misconception in our society that mental illness is something that can be soldiered through. Many people do successfully hide it when it could potentially hurt feelings or inconvenience others (like I tried to do for most of my life). But even if an illness is made invisible, it’s still there; it needs to be attended to just as much as a broken bone or disease, or there are consequences.

Thanks to recent public awareness campaigns and more people sharing their personal stories, mental illness is becoming a less taboo topic in general conversation, and I’ve “outed” myself as an anxiety sufferer in several publications. Complete strangers know my mental health status, and yet … I’m still not ready to say to someone, in real life, “Thank you so much for including me in the invite, but social gatherings are a trigger for my anxiety and it’s been a challenge lately, so I’m going to pass.” 

Let’s be real here. If you are not someone touched by anxiety, would a small part of you not be thinking: Wow, that seems extreme. It’s just wine and cheese! You might feel a little offended, or wonder if you had done something to offend me.  

Whereas, if a person declines an invite because they have a physical injury or illness, you probably wouldn’t give it a second thought. You certainly wouldn’t take it personally. I fib sometimes and say I’m busy because the last thing I want to do by avoiding one trigger of social anxiety is to cause another one and potentially damage a relationship. 

Is this a lasting solution? No. I value honesty and it creates a lot of dissonance within me to not be fully honest with people, especially people I care about. But, at least in my mind, this is the best way for dealing right now. Writing about it helps me be braver, inching the general conversation about anxiety ever-closer to my personal relationships.

I hope that someday soon, declining an invitation for mental health reasons will be as acceptable to others (and me) as saying, “Sorry; can’t make it — I have the flu.” 

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch!

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — An association of black students at Harvard Law School says the university “woefully failed to act” after four students received offensive emails and text messages from an anonymous sender.

The Harvard Black Law Students Association issued a statement Friday criticizing the school after it was unable to determine who sent the “hateful, racist and sexist” messages, and after officials refused to share details of an investigation with students who received the messages.

Four students, including two who are black, notified school officials this year that they had separately received messages with comments including “we all hate u,” “you know you don’t belong here” and “youre just here because of affirmative action.”

For the latest news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Harvard officials say the case was investigated by university police, information technology officials and an outside law firm hired by the school, but they have been unable to determine who was behind the messages.

“Sadly, the realities of technology sometimes permit those who commit such acts to evade detection, and we are disappointed that we were unable to identify who is responsible despite our efforts along multiple fronts,” a Harvard Law School spokesman said in a statement.

The student group believes the messages came from another student or students, but Harvard officials say that has not been confirmed. The group says the messages were sent from “retailer display phones” and two anonymous Gmail accounts.

Part of the dispute arises from a request to share details of Harvard’s investigation. The four students say Harvard officials promised to provide the findings of the investigation but have refused to do so. Harvard officials say student privacy laws prohibit them from sharing the findings.

“For reasons of student privacy and confidentiality reflected in federal law and HLS practice, Harvard Law School will not publicly disclose details of investigations,” Marcia Sells, the dean of students, said in a statement. “This practice is designed to protect the respective rights of all parties involved in any investigation.”

Sells added that the school’s administrators “continue to condemn in the strongest terms any communication or action that is intended to demean people.” But the group says the four students relied on the administration’s promise when they agreed to a school investigation.

“Now, more than seven months since the first hateful message was sent, the sender of this message remains unidentified and free to continue harassing Black and women students, meanwhile the targeted students have been left to continue fearing for their safety,” the group said in its statement.

Simmering racial tensions have occasionally flared at the elite law school in recent years. In 2015, portraits of several black professors were vandalized in a Harvard Law building, with slashes of black tape placed over the photos. Harvard police eventually closed the case without finding a culprit.

Later, in 2016, the law school agreed to retire its official crest after students protested its connection to an 18th-century slaveholder, Isaac Royall Jr., who donated his estate to create the first law professorship at Harvard.

A grasshopper invasion of seemingly biblical proportions has engulfed Las Vegas, with the clouds of tiny winged creatures becoming so large that they can be seen on weather radar.

On Saturday, the city’s National Weather Service branch shared footage of the radar on Twitter, noting that it is picking up “biological targets.” In this case, that means bugs.

The mass migration of the insects is being attributed to an unseasonably wet spring marked by higher-than-average rainfall, which has already exceeded the city’s roughly 4-inch annual average.

To make matters worse, experts say the critters could linger for weeks, and it might not be until the desert dries up, leaving them without food, that they move out, The New York Times reported. 

However, aside from being a nuisance, they pose no threat.

According to CBS News, Jeff Knight, a Nevada state entomologist, pointed out that grasshoppers don’t carry diseases and don’t bite, and they’re unlikely to cause any damage to backyards before they leave.

Apocalyptic-looking videos of the infestation posted on Twitter by local media show swarms enveloping entire parking lots and the iconic Las Vegas Strip.

Residents hoping to keep the grasshoppers at bay are advised to swich off any ultraviolet outdoor lights, and opt instead for amber or low UV replacements, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — An association of black students at Harvard Law School says the university “woefully failed to act” after four students received offensive emails and text messages from an anonymous sender.

The Harvard Black Law Students Association issued a statement Friday criticizing the school after it was unable to determine who sent the “hateful, racist and sexist” messages, and after officials refused to share details of an investigation with students who received the messages.

Four students, including two who are black, notified school officials this year that they had separately received messages with comments including “we all hate u,” “you know you don’t belong here” and “youre just here because of affirmative action.”

Harvard officials say the case was investigated by university police, information technology officials and an outside law firm hired by the school, but they have been unable to determine who was behind the messages.

“Sadly, the realities of technology sometimes permit those who commit such acts to evade detection, and we are disappointed that we were unable to identify who is responsible despite our efforts along multiple fronts,” a Harvard Law School spokesman said in a statement.

The student group believes the messages came from another student or students, but Harvard officials say that has not been confirmed. The group says the messages were sent from “retailer display phones” and two anonymous Gmail accounts.

Part of the dispute arises from a request to share details of Harvard’s investigation. The four students say Harvard officials promised to provide the findings of the investigation but have refused to do so. Harvard officials say student privacy laws prohibit them from sharing the findings.

“For reasons of student privacy and confidentiality reflected in federal law and HLS practice, Harvard Law School will not publicly disclose details of investigations,” Marcia Sells, the dean of students, said in a statement. “This practice is designed to protect the respective rights of all parties involved in any investigation.”

Sells added that the school’s administrators “continue to condemn in the strongest terms any communication or action that is intended to demean people.” But the group says the four students relied on the administration’s promise when they agreed to a school investigation.

“Now, more than seven months since the first hateful message was sent, the sender of this message remains unidentified and free to continue harassing Black and women students, meanwhile the targeted students have been left to continue fearing for their safety,” the group said in its statement.

Simmering racial tensions have occasionally flared at the elite law school in recent years. In 2015, portraits of several black professors were vandalized in a Harvard Law building, with slashes of black tape placed over the photos. Harvard police eventually closed the case without finding a culprit.

Later, in 2016, the law school agreed to retire its official crest after students protested its connection to an 18th-century slaveholder, Isaac Royall Jr., who donated his estate to create the first law professorship at Harvard.

MOSCOW — Nearly 1,400 people were detained in a violent police crackdown on an opposition protest in Moscow, a Russian group that monitors police arrests said Sunday, adding that was the largest number of detentions at a rally in the Russian capital this decade.

OVD-Info, which has monitored the arrests since 2011, said the number of the detentions it logged for Saturday’s protest reached 1,373 by early Sunday. The overwhelming majority of people were soon released but 150 remain in custody, OVD-Info and a lawyers’ association providing legal aid to the detainees said Sunday. 

For the latest news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Russian police violently dispersed thousands of people who thronged the streets of Moscow on Saturday to protest election authorities for disqualifying independent candidates from the Sept. 8 vote for the Moscow city council.

Several protesters reported broken limbs and head injuries. Police justified their response by saying the rally was not sanctioned by authorities.

Along with the arrests of the mostly young demonstrators, several opposition activists who wanted to run for the Moscow City Duma were arrested throughout the city before the protest. They were released later in the day only to be re-arrested again in the evening.

Police eventually cordoned off the City Hall and dispersed protesters from the area, but thousands of demonstrators reassembled in several different locations nearby where new arrests began. Russian police beat some of them to the ground with wide truncheon swings while other demonstrators tried to push police away.

Police said the protester numbered about 3,500 people but aerial footage from several locations where people were rallying simultaneously suggests at least 8,000 protesters.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Sunday decried the violent crackdown as “use of disproportionate police force.” The Russian presidential human rights council said Sunday it was concerned about the police brutality.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail for calling Saturday’s unsanctioned protest, was hospitalized Sunday with a severe allergy attack, his spokeswoman said.

Kira Yarmysh said Sunday that Navalny, who did not have any allergies beforehand, was taken from the Moscow detention facility to a hospital in the morning, arriving with severe facial swelling and red rashes on his skin. He is considered the most well-known opposition figure in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made sure to be away from Moscow this weekend. On Sunday, he led Russia’s first major naval parade in years, going aboard one of the vessels in the Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. The parade included 43 ships and submarines and 4,000 troops.

Multiple people reportedly were injured Sunday in a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California.

At least 11 people have been transferred to area hospitals, a spokeswoman for Santa Clara Valley Medical Center said Sunday in a news conference.

The New York Times, citing city councilman Dion Bracco, reported that at least three people had died. Bracco told HuffPost he had no additional information.  

The shooting reportedly began toward the end of the final day of the festival. The Gilroy Police Department said in a statement around 7:30 p.m. local time that the “scene is still active.” 

Videos posted on social media show festivalgoers running en masse toward the exits.

One eyewitness told NBC Bay Area that he had been leaving the event when he felt a bullet whiz past his head.

Miquita Price told the station she was with three family members at the festival when she heard shots fired.

“We hid under a utility truck,” she said. “We used that for shelter.”

She described running away from the scene with a handful of people, including one woman Price said had been “shot in the neck.”  

One of Price’s family members is still missing, she said. “I’m in front of where all the ambulances are, they are taking people and air-lifting people,” she said. “It’s crazy.”

More than a dozen ambulance and fire department units had been dispatched in response to the shooting, reported the San Francisco Chronicle, citing a Cal Fire website. 

Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also responding to the scene, according to The Associated Press. 

Gilroy Police said in their statement that people looking for friends and family should head to the reunification center at parking lot B at Gavilan College.

President Donald Trump tweeted about the incident Sunday evening, advising people in the area to stay safe. 

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom also responded to the incident on Twitter. Newsom called the shooting “nothing short of horrific.”

“Tonight, [California] stands with the Gilroy community,” the governor wrote. “My office is monitoring the situation closely. Grateful for the law enforcement’s efforts and their continued work as this situation develops.”

The three-day garlic festival, which is hosted by community volunteers and held at Gilroy’s Christmas Hill Park, raises money for local schools, charities and nonprofit organizations, according to the event’s website.

Tens of thousands of food lovers flock to the town annually to attend the event.

Sanjana Karanth, Saba Hamedy and Nick Visser contributed reporting. 

This is a developing story. Please back for updates.

Buckingham Palace is denying that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle banned neighbors from talking to them after a British tabloid published a code of conduct allegedly given to Windsor locals.

“The Duke and Duchess didn’t request this, didn’t know about it, and had nothing to do with the content or guidance offered,” a spokesperson said in a statement obtained Saturday by HELLO! magazine.

On Friday, The Sun reported that a list of rules had been given to residents near Frogmore Cottage where the royal couple moved earlier this year, leaving behind Kensington Palace.

The supposed guidelines barred anyone from approaching the couple or striking up a conversation, also stipulating that their dogs were not to be touched. In addition, neighbors were reportedly warned not to ask to see newborn baby Archie.

According to the paper, Buckingham Palace said the demands were the work of one of its “overly protective” officials, though no name is given.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have attempted to maintain a life of privacy for their 2-month-old child, who was born May 6. His christening was attended only by a small group of close family and friends, and the identities of his godparents have been kept secret. However, the couple doesn’t appear to be hiding away by any means, showing up recently at the London premiere of “The Lion King” days after an outing with Archie at a polo match.

AMETHI — A 64-year-old retired Army captain was beaten to death by unidentified assailants in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi district, police said on Sunday.

Reacting strongly, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra hit out at the BJP government in the state alleging that it was not able to curb rising crimes.

Gandhi said in a tweet: 

The incident occurred on Saturday night in Godiyan ka Purva village under Kamrauli Police Station limits, they said.

The retired Army personnel, Amanullah, and his wife were in their house when a group of people attacked them with sticks, his son told the police.

Amanuallah’s wife told police that some people were trying to steal from a shop adjoining their house and when her husband objected and warned the perpetrators that he will inform police, they entered the house and beat him up, ASP Dayaram said.

For the latest news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.

She also said the attackers tried to strangle him, the ASP said.

The attackers thrashed Amanullah across the head due to which he died on the spot, his son said in his statement.

He said no family member other than his parents were in the house when the incident took place.

The body has been sent for post-mortem and further investigation is underway, Dayaram said.

In a tweet, Priyanka Gandhi asked if the Yogi Adityanath government in the state would continue to cover up incidents of crime or will find a solution to the problem.

“The law-and-order situation in Uttar Pradesh is not in the control of the state government. While crimes are on the rise, the state government is busy covering them up,” she tweeted in Hindi.

“This is an incident in my home Amethi. Will the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh find a solution to this problem or will it continue to sleep and cover up,” she said.

The Amethi Lok Sabha constituency was a pocket borough of the Congress party for many years. However, in the 2019 general election, BJP leader Smriti Irani defeated Priyanka Gandhi’s brother and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi by a considerable margin.

Newly sworn in Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa is all set to face a trust vote at the Karnataka assembly on Monday. 

The House is going to convene at 11 am and Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar preside over the trust vote proceedings. 

Yediyurappa was confident of a win when he said on Sunday, “100% I will prove my majority.”

He said this even as on Sunday the Speaker disqualified 14 more rebel MLAs under the anti-defection act till the end of the current term of the assembly in 2023.

For the latest news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Karnataka Assembly Speaker Ramesh Kumar on Sunday disqualified 14 more Congress-JD(S) rebel MLAs under the anti-defection law, taking the total tally of disqualified legislators to 17, which will not have any direct impact on the Yediyurappa government’s trust vote on Monday.

The effective strength of the 224-member assembly excluding the Speaker, who has a casting vote in case of a tie, is 207. The BJP requires 104 votes to win. 

The BJP , along with the support of one independent, has 106 members, Congress 66 (including nominated), JD(S) 34 and one BSP member, who has been expelled by the party for not voting for the Kumaraswamy government during the trust vote.

The 14-month-old Congress-JDS coalition governmentheaded by HD Kumaraswamy collapsed on Tuesday after losingthe vote of confidence in the assembly in a climax to the three-week long intense power struggle. 

No JD(S) support to BJP 

Meanwhile, the JD(S), which had tied up with the Congress to form the government that fell, has said that there was no question of them supporting the BJP. 

Party supremo HD Deve Gowda said on Saturday that his party would play the role of a “constructive” opposition.

Gowda made the party position clear a day after a section of JD(S) legislators asked former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to extend support to the BJP government in Karnataka.

After a meeting of JDS MLAs on Friday, party senior leader GT Devegowda had said “Some have suggested that we should sit in opposition, while some legislators are of the opinion that we should support the BJP from outside.”

The BJP government headed by Yediyurappa took office on Friday after the collapse of the Congress-JDS coalition ministry with the defeat of the motion of confidence in the assembly on Tuesday last.

“We are going to play a constructive role. As a regional party we will oppose where we have to oppose. That’s all.

If you (Yediyurappa) do something good for the state, we will welcome it,” Deve Gowda told reporters here.

The JDS patriarch said “There is no big deal in saying so (support to BJP). His (HT Devegowda’s) intention was that the finance bill was passed (before July 31) because it was a budget presented by Kumaraswamy.”

Gowda explained that GT Devegowda intended to say that the JD(S) would not oppose every move of BJP just for the heck of it.

“The pain of losing power within 14 months instead of 60 months (five years) is evident among Congress and the JD(S)leaders. Hence, GT Devegowda expressed his views. What’s the big deal in it? Isn’t it his right to express views?” he said.

(With PTI inputs)

At launch, the Redmi K20 was easily overshadowed by its Snapdragon 855-toting ‘Pro’ sibling. The attention it did finally get was in the form of outrage by a section of fans, angry that the phone was priced above Rs. 20,000, with some even going so far as to raise a Change.org petition! 

Just how justified was this outrage though? Is the Redmi K20 worth the money? We dig deep to answer three key questions about the all-new Redmi K20.

The Redmi K20 is available at Mi.com, Flipkart and Mi Home stores at Rs. 21,999 for the 6GB/64GB model or Rs. 23,999 for the 6GB/128GB version.

For the latest news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Redmi K20 vs Redmi K20 Pro—How similar are they?

Usually there’s a big gap between the Pro and ordinary models of phones, with size, battery, and camera being some of the ways that they differ. Not so with the Redmi K20. Xiaomi has used the exact same materials, colorways and build quality in both the Redmi K20 and Redmi K20 Pro.

The likeness is not merely superficial—the K20 shares the same in-display fingerprint scanner, pop-up selfie camera, button layout and ports as the Redmi K20 Pro. They also share the 6.3-inch full-HD AMOLED displays, and have the same 20MP front-facing camera, 4000mAh batteries, and run the MIUI10/POCO Launcher combo. One difference is that the Redmi K20 does not support 27W fast charging, which the Redmi K20 Pro does.

Redmi K20 vs Redmi K20 Pro—What’s different?

The main differences are that the Redmi K20 Pro uses the top-end Snapdragon 855 chip, while the Redmi K20 uses the newer, but slightly less powerful Snapdragon 730. This isn’t noticeable, unless you’re running a game like PUBG at the highest graphics settings.

The next big change is that the Redmi K20 uses the Sony IMX582 sensor for the rear camera, while the Redmi K20 Pro uses the IMX586. The latter has a slight advantage when it comes to video—with the Redmi K20 Pro, you can shoot 4K videos at 60 frames per second, while the Redmi K20 can shoot 4K videos at “only” 30 frames per second. The rest of the multi-camera setup is the same too.

If one were to nitpick, the images are a little less vibrant on the Redmi K20, but they’re still detailed and offer excellent dynamic range. The low-light performance still leaves much to be desired, and Xiaomi would do well to push out a software update to address the soft details when shooting in less light.

Add to cart?

Is the price tag, which caused so much outrage, justified? 

First, the Snapdragon 730 processor lines up after the Snapdragon 855 and Snapdragon 845 platforms in terms of outright performance, so you could either spend just a little more, and pick up the Redmi K20 Pro… or spend a little less and get last year’s Poco F1, for max performance. The cheaper Realme X is also a viable alternative.

Looked at by itself, the Redmi K20 seems like a great buy, with great specs and a cool design. The price is justified, but given the heavy competition, it might have been a good idea to lower the tag a little.

Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa won the trust vote in the Karnataka Assembly on Monday through a voice vote.

Moving the confidence motion, Yediyurappa said he would not indulge in “politics of vengeance” and believed in the “forget and forgive principle.”

He said the administrative machinery had collapsed and his priority was to bring it back on track.

Congress and JD(S), according to PTI, did not press for division on the one-line motion moved by Yediyurappa. With no opposition, Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar declared that the motion had been passed by a voice vote.

Soon after the BJP government won the trust vote, Speaker Ramesh Kumar tendered his resignation, according to NDTV. 

Kumar said as the Speaker, he had worked according to his “conscience” and in accordance with the Constitution.

“I have upheld the dignity of office to the best of my ability,” he added.

Yediyurappa was sworn-in as the chief minister on 26 July for the fourth time after the collapse of the HD Kumaraswamy-led Congress-JD(S) government.

(With PTI inputs)