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Jerusalem lorry attacker 'was IS supporter'

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NewsHubIsrael’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said „all the signs“ are that a man who killed four soldiers in Jerusalem was a supporter of so-called Islamic State (IS).
But he did not outline evidence to support the claim.
The Palestinian man, who has since been shot dead, drove a lorry into a group of soldiers.
An emergency meeting of the Israeli security cabinet approved detention without trial for IS sympathisers.
Three women and a man, all in their twenties, were killed in the attack and 17 others were wounded, police said.
The attacker, identified as 28-year-old Fadi Qunbar, came from the Palestinian district of Jabel Mukaber in east Jerusalem, near to the attack site.
CCTV footage showed the truck ploughing at high speed into the soldiers, before reversing over the victims.
„He drove backward to crush more people,“ eyewitness Leah Schreiber told reporters. „That was really clear. “
The Israel Defense Forces tweeted that the dead soldiers were Lt Yael Yekutiel, 20; Lt Shir Hajaj, 22; 2nd Lt Erez Orbach, 20 and 2nd Lt Shira Tzur, 20.
Other soldiers shot the driver dead. Nine people were arrested in a raid on his neighbourhood, including five members of his family.
Mr Netanyahu visited the site of the attack on Sunday afternoon and said: „We know that there has been a series of terror attacks.
„There definitely could be a connection between them – from France to Berlin, and now Jerusalem. “
Attackers in Nice and Berlin last year used the same method of driving a lorry through a crowd.
National police chief Roni Alseich said it was possible the driver had been motivated by last month’s lorry attack in Berlin.
He said: „It is difficult to get into the head of every individual to determine what prompted him, but there is no doubt that these things do have an effect. “
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has political power in Gaza but is designated a terrorist group by the US and the EU, praised the attacker. Hamas spokesman Abdul-Latif Qanou called it a „heroic“ act and encouraged other Palestinians to „escalate the resistance“.
Before this latest incident, 35 Israelis had been killed in a wave of knife, gun and car-ramming attacks by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs since October 2015.
More than 200 Palestinians – mostly attackers, Israel says – have also been killed in that period.
Israel says Palestinian incitement has fuelled the attacks. The Palestinian leadership has blamed frustration rooted in decades of Israeli occupation.

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Influential former Iranian leader Rafsanjani dead at age 82

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NewsHubTEHRAN, Iran — Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a wily political survivor and multimillionaire mogul who remained among the ruling elite despite moderate views, died Sunday, state TV reported. He was 82.
Iranian media reported earlier Sunday that he was taken to a hospital north of Tehran because of a heart condition. State television broke into programming to announce his death, the female newscaster’s voice quivering as she read the news.
She said Rafsanjani, “after a life full of restless efforts in the path of Islam and revolution, had departed for lofty heaven.”
Rafsanjani’s mix of sly wit and reputation for cunning moves — both in politics and business — earned him a host of nicknames such as Akbar Shah, or Great King, during a life that touched every major event in Iranian affairs since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
His presence — whether directly or through back channels — was felt in many forms. He was a steady leader in the turbulent years following the overthrow of the U. S.-backed shah, a veteran warrior in the country’s internal political battles and a covert go-between in intrigue such as the Iran-Contra arms deals in the 1980s.
He also was handed an unexpected political resurgence in his later years.
The surprise presidential election in 2013 of Rafsanjani’s political soul mate, Hassan Rouhani, gave the former president an insider role in reform-minded efforts that included Rouhani’s push for direct nuclear talks with Washington. World powers and Iran ultimately struck a deal to limit the country’s nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.
While Rafsanjani was blocked from the 2013 ballot by Iran’s election overseers — presumably worried about boosting his already wide-ranging influence — the former leader embraced Rouhani’s success.
“Now I can easily die since people are able to decide their fate by themselves,” he reportedly said last March.
However, Rouhani now faces a crucial presidential election in May which will serve as a referendum on the deal and thawing relations with the West. Rafsanjani was sharply critical of a move by Iran’s constitutional watchdog to block moderates, including Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, from running for a top clerical body in elections last year.
Rafsanjani was a close aide of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and served as president from 1989 to 1997 during a period of significant changes in Iran. At the time, the country was struggling to rebuild its economy after a devastating 1980-88 war with Iraq, while also cautiously allowing some wider freedoms, as seen in Iran’s highly regarded film and media industry.
He also oversaw key developments in Iran’s nuclear program by negotiating deals with Russia to build an energy-producing reactor in Bushehr, which finally went into service in 2011 after long delays. Behind the scenes, he directed the secret purchase of technology and equipment from Pakistan and elsewhere.
Rafsanjani managed to remain within the ruling theocracy after leaving office, but any dreams of taking on a higher-profile role collapsed with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009 and the intense crackdown that followed. Rafsanjani’s harsh criticism of Ahmadinejad branded him as a dissenter in the eyes of many conservatives.
In a sign of his waning powers, Rafsanjani’s stance cost him his position as one of the Friday prayer leaders at Tehran University, a highly influential position that often is the forum for significant policy statements.
But some analysts believe that Rafsanjani was kept within the ruling fold as a potential mediator with America and its allies in the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. His past stature as a trusted Khomeini ally also offered him political protection. Rafsanjani was a top commander in the war with Iraq and played a key role in convincing Khomeini to accept a cease-fire after years of crippling stalemate.
Nearly 25 years later, Rafsanjani tried to revive his credentials among a new generation of reformers by recounting proposals he made to Khomeini in the late 1980s to consider outreach to the United States, still seen by hard-liners as the “Great Satan.”
His image, however, also had darker undertones. He was named by prosecutors in Argentina among Iranian officials suspected of links to a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Some Iranian reformers accused him of involvement in the slaying of liberals and dissidents during his presidency — charges that were never pursued by Iranian authorities.
“The title of Islamic Republic is not just a formality,” he said in 2009 in the chaos after Ahmadinejad’s re-election.
“Rest assured, if one of those two aspects is damaged we will lose our revolution. If it loses its Islamic aspect, we will go astray. If it loses its republican aspect, (the Islamic Republic) will not be realized. Based on the reasons that I have offered, without people and their vote there would be no Islamic system.”
Rafsanjani — a portly man with only sparse and wispy chin hairs in contrast to the full beards worn by most Islamic clerics in Iran — first met Khomeini in the Shiite seminaries of Qom in the 1950s and later became a key figure in the Islamic uprising that toppled the U. S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.
His smooth-skinned visage gave him another nickname that also fit his ruthless image: The Shark.
He was elected as head of Iran’s parliament in 1980 and served until 1989, when he was elected for the first of two four-year terms as president.
Here, Rafsanjani began to build his multilayered — and sometimes contradictory — political nature: A supporter of free enterprise, a relative pragmatist toward foreign affairs and an unforgiving leader who showed no mercy to any challenges to his authority.
Rafsanjani took a dim view of state control of the economy — even in the turbulent years after the Islamic Revolution — and encouraged private businesses, development of Tehran’s stock market and ways to boost Iranian exports. His priority was to rebuild the country after eight years of bloody war with Iraq that killed an estimated 1 million people.
He built roads and connected villages to electrical, telephone and water networks for the first time, earning the title of Commander of Reconstruction by his supporters.
There were certain self-interests at play, as well.
Rafsanjani was assumed to be the head of a family-run pistachio business, which grew to become one of Iran’s largest exporters and provided the financial foundation for a business empire that would eventually include construction companies, an auto assembly plant, vast real estate holdings and a private airline. In 2003, he was listed among Iran’s “millionaire mullahs” by Forbes magazine.
His economic policies won him praise from Iran’s elite and merchant classes, but brought bitterness from struggling workers seeking greater state handouts. Rafsanjani also faced warnings from the ruling theocracy about pushing too far. None of his reforms dared to undercut the vast power of the Revolutionary Guard — which Rafsanjani briefly commanded, and which controls every key defense and strategic program.
Rafsanjani’s complex legacy also was shaped by the times.
He took over the presidency in a critical time of transition just after the death of Khomeini. He tried to make overtures for better ties with the U. S. after the American-led invasion of Kuwait in 1991 to drive out Iraqi forces, arguing that Iran paid too high a price for its diplomatic freeze with Washington.
But he could not overcome opposition from Iranian hard-liners and failed to win the backing of Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for bold foreign policy moves. He also angered the West by strengthening Iran’s ties to armed groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“One of the wrong things we did, in the revolutionary atmosphere, was constantly to make enemies,” he said in a 1987 interview. “We pushed those who could have been neutral into hostility.”
Rafsanjani was born in 1934 in the village of Bahraman in southeastern Iran’s pistachio-growing region of Rafsanjan. His father, too, was a pistachio farmer with a growing business that would later be expanded into a colossal enterprise.
Rafsanjani was jailed for several years under the shah. He then helped organize the network of mullahs that became Khomeini’s revolutionary underground. In 1965, he is reputed to have provided the handgun for the assassination of Iran’s prime minister, Hassan Ali Mansoor.
Only months after the revolution, Rafsanjani was shot once in the stomach by gunmen from one of the groups vying for power amid the political turmoil. He was not seriously wounded — and neither was his wife, who jumped in front to shield him from the attack.
“Great men of history do not die,” Khomeini said in announcing that Rafsanjani had survived.
In 1980, Rafsanjani was appointed head of the new parliament, or majlis, and was often regarded as the second most powerful man in the country. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the republic’s first president, who was forced into exile in 1981 during a power struggle, described Rafsanjani in Machiavellian terms.
“He’s a man with a marked taste for power,” he said in a 1989 interview with The Associated Press from his exile in France. “He’s a political animal.”
Bani-Sadr said Rafsanjani also used to play the role of court jester to amuse Khomeini.
“He’s a man who makes people laugh,” Bani-Sadr said. “It’s a great art. He makes Khomeini laugh. He uses this to gain his objectives … He’s not brilliant as an organizer and he doesn’t have too many original ideas, but he’s a manipulator and he’s intelligent.”
During the 1980s, he used his links with Lebanese Shiite extremists to help secure the release of Western hostages in Lebanon and was a key middleman — identified as “Raf” in Pentagon documents — in the secret Iran-Contra dealings to funnel U. S. arms to Iran in exchange for money used to fund Nicaraguan rebels.
Although Rafsanjani was seen by Washington as a potential ice breaker in relations, his views were far from solidly pro-Western and displayed conflicted positions.
Shortly after becoming president in 1989, he urged Palestinians to kill Westerners to retaliate for Israel’s attacks in the occupied territories.
“It is not hard to kill Americans or Frenchmen,” he said.
In February 1994, Rafsanjani survived a second assassination attempt. A lone gunman fired at him as he was speaking to mark the 15th anniversary of the revolution. Unhurt and unshaken, Rafsanjani calmed a crowd of thousands and continued his speech.
The Iran-Contra fallout is an often-told tale about the dangers of crossing Rafsanjani.
After word was leaked to a Beirut magazine about Rafsanjani’s involvement, he ordered the arrest of the source, a senior adviser to the ruling clerics named Mehdi Hashemi, for treason and other charges. Hashemi and others were executed in September 1987.
After leaving the presidency, Rafsanjani’s main forum was his spot as one of the Friday prayer leaders. His sermons could run for more than two hours and were delivered without notes. In 1999 — amid the first major pro-reform unrest at Tehran University — he praised the use of force to put down the protests.
A decade later, however, he was dismayed at the brutal crackdown against opposition groups and others claiming Ahmadinejad won re-election in June 2009 through vote rigging sanctioned by the ruling theocracy.
Khamenei decided to throw his backing behind Ahmadinejad, effectively snubbing Rafsanjani and his complaints. Later, Rafsanjani fell short on efforts to mobilize enough moderate clerics in the Assembly of Experts — the only group with the power to dismiss the supreme leader — to force possible concessions from Khamenei on the postelection clampdowns.
Rafsanjani was forced out of the post in 2011, but remained as head of the Expediency Council, an advisory body that mediates disputes between the parliament and the Guardian Council, a watchdog group controlled by hard-line clerics.
In January 2012, a court sentenced Rafsanjani’s daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, to six months in prison on charges of criticizing the ruling system.
In 2013, Iran’s election watchdog rejected his nomination for the presidential campaign, hinting at his age.
In 2015, a court sentenced his younger son, Mahdi, to a 10-year prison term over embezzlement and security charges.
Rafsanjani is survived by his wife, Effat Marashi, and five children.

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Iran's ex-President Rafsanjani dies at 82 Contact WND

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NewsHub(BBC) — Iran’s ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a dominant figure in the country’s politics since the 1980s, has died at the age of 82.
Mr Rafsanjani, president from 1989 to 1997, suffered a heart attack.
He played a pivotal role in the 1979 revolution but later in life became a counterpoint to hardline conservatives.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hailed a “companion of struggle” despite their differences, saying that the loss was “difficult and overwhelming”.

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Bruins lose to Hurricanes in overtime

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NewsHubRALEIGH, N. C. — Sebastian Aho seems to be coming along nicely in his rookie season with the Carolina Hurricanes.
The 19-year-old Finnish winger scored his second goal of the game 1:34 into overtime to lift Carolina to a 4-3 victory over the Boston Bruins on Sunday.
It was the second two-goal game of the season for the slender second-round pick from the 2015 draft, who has been a key reason Carolina has been so dominant (12-4-1) at home this season.
“He’s a good player and a smart player,” Hurricanes Coach Bill Peters said. “He’s had a steady progression in his development. Hanging onto pucks, making plays. It would be nice if he became a little more selfish, took it to the net more and looked to be a shooter. But he’s a 19-year-old kid and his progression is right where you expect it. “
Derek Ryan and Jay McClement also scored for the Hurricanes, and Cam Ward finished with 32 saves.
Carolina won two of the three meetings between the teams, with all three going beyond regulation.
Tim Schaller, David Backes and Brad Marchand scored for Boston and Zane McIntyre stopped 26 shots in his first career appearance against Carolina.
The Bruins, who won 4-0 on Saturday at Florida, fell to 1-6-1 in the second games of back-to-backs this season.
“It was one of those momentum-shift games, and in the third period I thought we came hard and played really well,” Boston Coach Claude Julien said. “You could tell we wanted to win the game. But when you play back-to-backs you need everybody going, and tonight we didn’t have everybody going.”
Marchand tied the score at 7:43 of the third period as he beat Ward through traffic with an assist from Patrice Bergeron. That came just 23 seconds after McClement gave the Hurricanes a 3-2 lead, taking a pass from Viktor Stalberg from behind the goal line and flicking it around McIntyre.
Boston led 1-0 after the first period despite being outshot 13-8. Schaller put the Bruins ahead on a spin move from the right of the crease with 6:50 left.
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How Can We Guarantee We Will Never Lose Jerusalem Again? | Rabbi Yonah

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NewsHubby Rabbi Yonah Bookstein
3 days ago
Have you ever prayed, cried and longed for a lost loved one for a year?
You know how the pain, even after a whole year, will not go away?
Imagining holding on for 1,900 years.
Then you will understand what Jerusalem means to a Jew. Our lives our inseparable.
Every prayer I offer, every song I sing, every celebration I enjoy — is connected to Jerusalem.
Sunday is the 10th of Tevet when we observe a sunrise to sunset fast in memory of what happened in Jerusalem more then 2,500 years ago. In 588 BCE, the siege of the city by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia started on that day, and it was an event that ultimately culminated in the destruction of the first Temple built by King Solomon, and the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah and expulsion of ten of the tribes of Israel.
As the Jewish people, we eventually returned and rebuilt the Temple. But a few hundred years later we lost our Second Temple and were exiled into our longest, darkest exile.
Since Jewish sovereignty’s return to the newer parts of Jerusalem in 1948, and the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, Jewish tears have finally started to dry.
You might think that we would cancel this minor fast day. After all, the Jewish people are back in Jerusalem. The Sh’mah once again resonates across the city. The priestly blessings are again being offered on the Festivals.
So why am I fasting on Sunday? Because we cannot fully celebrate yet — not the way we are behaving.
The reason we lost Jerusalem was not because of external forces or foes, it was because of our own divisions, infighting, and abandonment of our Jewish mission.
Dearest brothers and sisters, it is important to use our voices to call upon our elected leaders to protect Jerusalem. But we know that the future of Jerusalem doesn’t depend on who is president or a vote in the UN.
The future of Jerusalem is for God to decide. We have the chance to show the Master of the Universe that we have finally outgrown our divisions and infighting. We can love and care for one another. We can increase our commitment to our Holy mission on planet Earth. We can show that we truly are ready for the promise of Jerusalem.
That is what Sunday’s fast is about. As the Rambam wrote in Mishna Torah a thousand years ago:
Even if you can’t fast, please consider dedicating some time, energy, and resources to do some soul-searching.
That is how we can guarantee that we never lose Jerusalem again.
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Andy Shaw: No more hiding public business in private emails

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NewsHubFollow @andyshawbga
It’s nice to end a year on a high note, and the Better Government Association ’s settlement of a private email dispute with the Emanuel administration certainly qualifies.
The agreement negotiated by BGA attorney and open records expert Matt Topic required City Hall to release thousands of emails from the mayor’s personal account and established a new policy that prohibits all city employees from using their personal email addresses to discuss government business.
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It’s a significant victory in the fight to make City Hall more transparent, but that battle is continuing, and we’ll have new skirmishes on new fronts as we press more public officials to comply with Illinois’ open records laws instead of trying to circumvent them.
We can’t let them hide conversations that affect our lives and our tax dollars in personal email accounts that are often inaccessible.
Settlement of our City Hall lawsuit changes the rules in Chicago, and it can also serve as a template for transparency efforts around the country.
We find comparable bans on the use of personal email for government business in only wo cities — Austin, Texas and Washington D. C. — and just a few states, including Illinois, have broad enough “public records” definitions to include some personal accounts.
This prohibition should apply to government offices in every city and state, and that may require journalists and watchdogs to do what the BGA did: Submit open records requests, file lawsuits when they’re stonewalled, and settle cases if they can obtain the personal emails they’re asking for and change public policy.
Our friends at the Chicago Tribune filed a lawsuit similar to ours requesting a smaller set of the mayor’s personal emails , and his text messages, and their case is continuing.
We wish them well, and our settlement does nothing to diminish their effort.
But our fight accomplished the primary goals of every BGA open records lawsuit: Get the information we’re seeking, reform misguided policies, and avoid protracted litigation at taxpayer expense.
Critics of our settlement say we shouldn’t have agreed to anything less than a court review of emails, instead of accepting a pledge from the mayor’s lawyers to provide every email related to public business that we’re entitled to under Illinois’ open records law.
But we decided that if the mayor wanted to hide explosive emails he probably wouldn’t have initiated settlement discussions in the first place, or put his attorneys’ law licenses at risk by playing games in a binding legal document.
Still, if it turns out he was trying to scam us, trust me — we’ll be back in court.
And if you’re wondering about the lack of emails on incendiary issues like the Laquan McDonald shooting, consider that:
+ Our case isn’t over — a number of City Hall emails were redacted or withheld on exemption claims, and we’re challenging some of them. If the city doesn’t adequately address our concerns, I repeat: We’ll be back in court.
+ The mayor’s personal accounts were set up to automatically delete emails after 90 days, which eradicated years of conversations.
We probably can’t recover those deletions, but we can ask if the use of auto-delete features by Emanuel and other public officials violates state record retention laws.
From our initial investigation, it appears those emails should have been retained for at least a year, not 90 days.
So yes — we have more transparency at City Hall today than yesterday, and that’s good. But there’s lot of watchdog work ahead of us.
And we’re on it.
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Asian shares mixed as US job data adds to case for Fed hikes

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NewsHubAsian stock indexes were mixed Monday while the dollar rebounded after a U. S. job report showed strong wage gains, giving more ammunition to U. S. policymakers planning further rate rises.
KEEPING SCORE: Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng index was practically unchanged at 22,507.32 while the Shanghai Composite in mainland China rose 0.5 percent to 3,169.15. South Korea’s Kospi dipped 0.1 percent to 2,048.30 while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 jumped 1.1 percent to 5,817.30. Trading in Japan was closed for a holiday. Benchmarks in Southeast Asia were mixed.
US JOBS: Friday’s Labor Department report painted a mixed picture of U. S. employment. It showed that companies added a solid but slightly disappointing 156,000 jobs in December. On the other hand, hourly pay jumped 2.9 percent from the year before, which was the biggest monthly increase in seven years. For 2016 overall, job growth in the world’s biggest economy remained steady in 2016, although the pace was slower than in 2015.
ANAYST VIEW: „U. S. markets have closed off the first week of the year with a steady set of gains across sectors and the same can be seen in most Asian markets,“ said Jingyi Pan, market strategist at IG in Singapore. „With improving indicators in the U. S. and across Asia, we could see a second set of gains this week in this data-filled week. “
CHINA OUTFLOWS: Official data showed that China’s foreign exchange reserves contracted in December for the sixth straight month, falling by $41 billion to just over $3 trillion, according to the People’s Bank of China. The central bank said Saturday its effort to stabilize the yuan was a major reason for the drop in forex reserves. The latest figures underline Beijing’s willingness to use its huge stockpile of foreign currency to stabilize the yuan, which has been declining as residents and companies send more money overseas amid flagging confidence in China’s economy.
WALL STREET: Most major U. S. benchmarks crept higher, finishing the week with a big gain as investors remained optimistic about the U. S. economy. The Dow Jones industrial average flirted with the 20,000-level but finished up 0.3 percent at 19,963.80. The S&P 500 rose 0.4 percent to 2,276.98. The Nasdaq composite jumped 0.6 percent to 5,521.06. The small-cap Russell 2000 index slid 0.3 percent to 1,367.28.
CURRENCIES: The dollar rose to 117.35 yen from 116.93 yen in late trading Friday. The euro was unchanged at $1.0533.
ENERGY: U. S. benchmark crude oil slipped 27 cents to $53.72 a barrel in electronic trading in New York Mercantile Exchange. The contact rose 23 cents to close at $53.99 a barrel on Friday. Brent crude, which is used to price oil sold internationally, added lost 17 cents to $576.93 a barrel in London.

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Maine towns swap fee demands over school bus turnaround

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NewsHubA $22.96 tax bill sent from Manchester to West Gardiner for a school bus turnaround used by both towns prompted West Gardiner selectmen to fire off a terse letter that suggested it could fight back by charging new fees of its own.
The Pond Road parcel in Manchester is used by buses picking up students in West Gardiner and Manchester and was built by West Gardiner at a cost of $2,300 on the 12-acre lot near the Manchester/West Gardiner town line, the letter signed by West Gardiner’s three selectmen says.
West Gardiner also plows and sands the short stretch of road between the turnaround and the town line. The letter said West Gardiner officials were “disappointed” that Manchester has chosen to charge an annual property tax of $22.96 for the property, and it warns West Gardiner could bill Manchester for the use of the turnaround, and plowing and sanding of that section of road.
“We do not charge your town for using our turnaround,” the letter signed by Gregory Couture, Merton Hickey and Randall Macomber says. “Also, we currently plow and sand from the turnaround to the town line. Perhaps you should abate our taxes. We could start to charge for the use of our property and for plowing and sanding of your road.”
E. Patrick Gilbert, Manchester’s town manager, said Manchester started charging West Gardiner property taxes on the parcel in 2014, after an auditor from Maine Revenue Services advised the town that the parcel, owned by West Gardiner but located in Manchester, could not be labeled a municipal property because it is not a Manchester municipal property. Municipal properties are exempt from property taxes.
So, starting in 2014, a tax bill was generated and sent to West Gardiner, with the property valued at $1,400.
“For years, we never taxed it, because we recognized it as tax-exempt,” Gilbert said Friday. “When that happened, in 2014, we put it on the books. We were advised we had to tax it.”
To address the issue, in a proposal that goes to selectmen in Manchester at their Tuesday meeting, Gilbert said selectmen could agree to reduce the value of the property to the lowest amount, $100, recognized by Manchester’s TRIO tax-processing system.
That would reduce the annual tax bill for the property to $1.63, Gilbert said, which would be billed to the town of West Gardiner.
But Gilbert said, if selectmen in Manchester wish, they could abate the $1.63 tax, tell West Gardiner to ignore it, or pay it out of petty funds.
“I think the board will consider doing something, recognizing that use of the property and wanting to be a good municipal neighbor,” Gilbert said. “It’s not much money. They could abate it.”
The land was sold to West Gardiner in 1999 for $2,000 by longtime West Gardiner Selectman Merton Hickey, according to Manchester tax records.
Selectmen in Manchester are scheduled to discuss the issue at their 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday at the Manchester Town Office.
Selectmen are also scheduled to discuss whether the town should adopt a moratorium temporarily banning retail recreational marijuana operations in Manchester. Gilbert said no proposal is currently on the table.
Many central Maine municipalities, including Augusta , Gardiner , Richmond , Clinton and Madison , are considering or have adopted moratoriums on recreational marijuana businesses, while officials in the town of Oakland voted to ban such businesses, long-term.
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На автодорогах Черкасской области снято временное ограничение движения транспорта

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NewsHubКак сообщалось ранее, Служба автомобильных дорог в Черкасской области в связи с резким ухудшением погодных условий со снегопадами, метелями, снежными заносами, усилением ветра до 15-22 м / с, на автодорогах общего пользования Черкасской области с 10:00 8 января 2017 ввела временное ограничение движения крупногабаритного, тяжеловесного и пассажирского транспорта. Так, в настоящее время все ограничения движения транспорта на автодорогах области сняты.

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На Дунае парализовано судовое движение из-за понижения температуры

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NewsHubВ связи с резким похолоданием и понижением температуры воды на Дунае сложилась ледовая обстановка, движение флота парализовано практически на всем протяжении реки, сообщила компания “ Украинское дунайское пароходство. “
„По состоянию на 8 января суда „УДП“ на венгерском, сербском и болгарском участках движутся в порты-убежища, где смогут быть обеспечены связью с берегом и диспетчерской пароходства, а также водой и необходимым снабжением“. – отмечают в компании.
По последним данным, на австрийском участке льда пока нет. На венгерском участке – ледоход 50%, на сербском участке образование рыхлого льда до 50%, на болгарском – до 100%.
„В районе Рени и Измаила наблюдается снежура (скопление снега на воде) до 80%.
В связи с прогнозируемым резким похолоданием в ближайшее время можно ожидать усиление ледовой обстановки, на украинском участке возможно усиление ледохода и появление заберегов (полос ледяного покрова вдоль берегов)“, – отмечают в компании.
Как сообщалось, В Европе из-за аномальных морозов погибло более 20 человек

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