Tag america

اسلام آبا:(نیٹ نیوز/ایمرا نیوز) وزیراعظم عمران خان نے کہا ہے کہ پاکستان آج ثالثی کے لیے مرکزی کردار ادا کررہا ہے اور افغانستان کے مسئلے پر امریکا نے تحریک انصاف کا مؤقف تسلیم کیا ہے۔وفاقی کابینہ کے اجلاس سے خطاب کرتے ہوئے وزیراعظم عمران خان نے کہا کہ امریکی نمائندہ خصوصی زلمے خلیل زاد سے ملاقات ہوئی جس میں افغان امن عمل پر بات ہوئی، خوشی ہے کہ 15 سال سے ہم جو کہہ رہے ہیں کہ افغان مسئلے کا حل فوجی نہیں اب امریکا بھی تسلیم کرتا ہے، امریکا نے تحریک انصاف کا مؤقف تسلیم کیا۔
کسی اور کی جنگ کے حصے دار بننے کی بجائے ہمارا اصل کردار ثالثی کرانا ہے:
وزیراعظم انہوں نے کہا کہ امریکا افغانستان میں امن اور افغان طالبان سے بات چیت کے لیے ہماری مدد چاہتا ہے، پاکستان آج ثالثی کے لیے مرکزی کردار ادا کررہا ہے، میں ہمیشہ سمجھتا تھا کہ بجائے ڈومور کے ہمارا کردار ثالثی کا ہونا چاہیے تھا کہ ہم افغانستان میں امن کے لیے کردار ادا کریں لیکن ہمیں ایسے ٹریٹ کیا گیا کہ کسی اور کی جنگ لڑنے کے لیے امداد دی جارہی ہے۔وزیراعظم کا کہنا تھاکہ کسی اور کی جنگ کے حصے دار بننے کی بجائے ہمارا اصل کردار ثالثی کرانا ہے، ہم نے یمن میں امن عمل آگے بڑھانے کی بات کی، ایران اور سعودی عرب سے بھی اس حوالے سے بات کی، ایرانی وزیر خارجہ نے ہمیں یمن جنگ ختم کرنے میں کردار ادا کرنے کا کہا۔
کرتارپور راہداری کو بھارت نے سیاسی فائدے کا رنگ دیا: عمران خان
عمران خان نے کہاکہ کرتارپور راہداری کو بھارت نے بدقسمتی سے سیاسی فائدے کا رنگ دیا، اس معاملے پر حکومت نے پورا زور لگایا، یہ ہمارا فرض ہے، اگر پاکستان میں کسی کے مذہبی مقامات ہیں تو ہمیں ان کی مدد کرنا چاہیے، ہم کوئی نئی چیز نہیں کررہے یہ ہمارے منشور کا حصہ ہے۔وزیراعظم کا کہنا تھا کہ کرتارپور معاملے پر سکھ برادری سے جو رد عمل ملا اس پر خوشی ہے، جس طرح ہمارے لیے مدینہ ہے ان کے لیے کرتارپور ہے، امید رکھتے ہیں بھارت بھی رد عمل دے گا۔
وزیراعظم کا معاشی ٹیم پر بھرپور اعتماد کا اظہار اور خراج تحسین
انہوں نے معاشی صورتحال پر بات کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ مشکل حالات میں معاشی ٹیم نے پرفارم کیا جس کا انہیں اسپیشل کریڈٹ دینا چاہتا ہوں، وزارتِ تجارت، خزانہ اور منصوبہ بندی نے برے حالات میں اپنا کردار ادا کیا۔وزیراعظم کا کہنا تھا کہ مخالفین برے حالات کی پیشگوئی کرتے ہیں، اگر برے حالات ہیں تو سرمایہ کاری کیسے آتی؟ آج سوزکی، کوک، پیپسی اور ایگزون نے ملین ڈالرز کی سرمایہ کاری کا فیصلہ کیا ہے، فونٹین والے ٹیکنالوجی ٹرانسفر کے لیے اسکول کھولیں گے اور ہمارے لوگوں کو تربیت دیں گے، ان تمام چیزوں کا کریڈٹ ہماری معاشی ٹیم کو جاتا ہے، مشکل حالات میں انہوں نے ایسا ماحول بنایا کہ لوگ سرمایہ کاری کرنے آرہے ہیں، سرمایہ کاری سے ہی ملک اوپر جاتاہے۔

Former US president George HW Bush, who helped steer America through the end of the Cold War, has died at age 94, his family announced late Friday.

“Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died,” his son, former president George W Bush, said in a statement released on Twitter by a family spokesman.

“George HW Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for,” he added.

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Bush Senior served as the 41st president of the United States.

He had been hospitalised for low blood pressure and fatigue in May, a week after arriving in Maine to spend the summer. He was released a few days later and celebrated his birthday on June 12 — making history by becoming the first former president to reach the age of 94.

In April, he was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital, a day after a funeral was held for his wife, Barbara Bush.

Bush was the patriarch of a political dynasty that included one son who served as president, another as a governor and a grandson who currently holds statewide office in Texas.

The senior Bush had a lifetime of public service before he became president — as a young Navy pilot in World War II, Texas congressman, CIA director and faithful vice president to Ronald Reagan.

واشنگٹن:(نیٹ نیوز/ایمرا نیوز) امریکا نے پاکستان سے متعلق اپنی پالیسی کو واضح کرتے ہوئے کہا ہے کہ واشنگٹن، اسلام آباد سے نتائج اور اعتماد کی بحالی کے لیے اقدامات چاہتا ہے۔ہفتہ وار پریس بریفنگ کے دوران امریکی اسٹیٹ ڈپارٹمنٹ کے نائب ترجمان رابرٹ پالاڈینو سے سوال کیا گیا کہ چند ہفتوں قبل امریکی صدر ڈونلڈ ٹرمپ نے اپنے پیغامات میں پاکستان پر دہشت گردوں کی پشت پناہی کا الزام عائد کیا، جس کے بعد پاکستانی وزیراعظم عمران خان نے بھی ٹوئٹر پر اس کا ردعمل دیا اور اچھی خاصی لفظی جنگ ہوئی لیکن اب امریکا، طالبان کو مذاکرات کی میز پر لانے کے لیے پاکستان کی طرف دیکھ رہا ہے تو کیا امریکا کی طرف سے بیانات دینے کا یہ وقت مناسب تھا؟جس کے جواب میں نائب ترجمان پالا ڈینو نے جواب دیا کہ سیکریٹری آف اسٹیٹ مائیک پومپیو یہ بات واضح کرچکے ہیں کہ پاک امریکا تعلقات میں اعتماد کی بحالی کے لیے پاکستان کو نتائج دینے کی ضرورت ہے اور اسلام آباد کے حوالے سے ہماری پالیسی واضح ہے۔بریفنگ کے دوران کرتارپور راہداری کے سنگ بنیاد رکھنے کے اقدام کا خیرمقدم کرتے ہوئے ترجمان کا کہنا تھا کہ اس سے پاکستان اور بھارت کے شہریوں کے درمیان تعلقات مزید مضبوط ہوں گے۔

Life expectancy in the United States dropped yet again as drug overdose deaths continued to climb — taking more than 70,000 lives in 2017 — and suicides rose, a US government report said Thursday.

The drug overdose rate rose 9.6 percent compared to 2016, while suicides climbed 3.7 percent, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention´s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics.

As a result, the average life span in America dropped to “78.6 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2016,” said the report.

The data comes as the United States grapples with a vast opioid epidemic, fueled by addiction to prescription painkillers as well as street drugs like heroin and synthetic opioids including fentanyl.

“The latest CDC data show that the US life expectancy has declined over the past few years. Tragically, this troubling trend is largely driven by deaths from drug overdose and suicide,” said CDC director Robert Redfield.

“Life expectancy gives us a snapshot of the nation´s overall health and these sobering statistics are a wakeup call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable.”
A ‘very concerning’ trend

Overdoses were a major factor when US life expectancy dropped slightly in 2015 for the first time in decades.

Another downtick was reported by the CDC in 2016, though those data were later revised to show a flat year, said Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the NCHS.

Overall, the statistics show a “downward trend in life expectancy since 2014,” a time period in which Americans have lost 0.3 years of life, he told AFP, describing the trend as “very concerning.”

Anderson said declines like this haven´t been seen since the great flu pandemic of 1918 and World War I — though those losses were steeper.

The peak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s also saw a nationwide drop in life expectancy.

“We´re a developed country, we have a lot of resources, we should have increasing life expectancy, not decreasing life expectancy,” he added.

Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans. Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world, at almost 84.
‘Hard to digest’

Drug overdose deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl — which killed the musicians Prince and Tom Petty — and tramadol increased by 45 percent between 2016 and 2017.

The rate of heroin deaths was seven times higher than in 1999.

CDC figures showed that a total of 70,237 people died of overdoses in 2017.

Most of these deaths were unintentional in nature.

The rise — although dramatic at nearly 10 percent year-on-year — was about half the spike seen a year earlier.

In 2016, 21.6 percent more people died from overdoses compared to 2015.

Separately released preliminary government data for the first part of 2018 have also appeared to show a leveling off in overdose deaths.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said at a health conference in October, when that data came out, that the “seemingly relentless trend of rising overdose deaths seems to be finally bending in the right direction.”

But experts urged caution in interpreting the results to mean the opioid epidemic has peaked, or is anywhere near an end.

“It is encouraging to see the trajectory of this start to decrease, without a doubt,” said Harshal Kirane, director of addiction services at Staten Island University Hospital in New York, who was not involved in the data collection.

“What would be a signal of some real change would be when the total number of overdose deaths year to year is actually decreasing,” he told AFP.

“Seventy-thousand deaths is hard to digest in any way as a positive outcome.”

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi on Wednesday assured that the federal government will uphold the Supreme Court’s verdict and not place Asia Bibi’s name on the Exit Control List (ECL) until she is proven guilty.

During an interview with the Voice of America, the minister of state for interior while speaking about the recent country-wide protests following the top court verdict acquitting Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death on blasphemy charges, said, “Among the protesters there was a group of people who were damaging property for their own personal gains and agenda.”

The minister of state for interior said the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) leaders, who the government signed an agreement with to end the demonstrations, refused that the miscreants were party members. “When we informed the TLP leaders of the miscreants and showed them footage, they refused to accept that those rioters belonged to the party,” he added.

Regarding the arrests of rioters, Afridi said, “Those arrested will be treated in a legal manner. I assure you there will no compromise on the supremacy of law.”

“It is the prime minister and other officials’ clear stance that there will be no compromise if anyone breaks or challenges the law,” he asserted.

Speaking about the agreement which stated that “due process will be followed immediately to include the name of Asia Bibi in ECL”, Afridi said, “The government will uphold whatever the Supreme Court decides.”

“If someone cannot be proven guilty then how can we place their name on ECL? There can be no question about that,” the minister of state for interior upheld.

He further said, “All Pakistanis no matter which religion or school of thought they belong to are the responsibility of the state. No one can be given the license to play with lives or property.”

“Asia Bibi and her family is in Pakistan and they are being given security by the government,” he added.

TLP ends countrywide protest after agreement with government

The Supreme Court on October 31 acquitted Bibi after blasphemy charges could not be proven against her and ordered her immediate release.

Following the verdict, protests had erupted in several cities across the country and property was damaged and vehicles set on fire in some places. The demonstrations saw closure of schools, colleges and universities, as well as cancellation of examinations.

The government and the protesters from different religious groups, led by TLP, reached an agreement two days later on Friday, November 2. As per the agreement, the government will raise no objections over the review petition over Bibi’s acquittal. The agreement further stated that due process will be followed immediately to include the name of Asia Bibi in ECL.

German nurse Niels Hoegel is on trial for at least 99 murders, having already been jailed for six, which would make him among the worst serial killers in recent history.

Here are seven others:
‘The Chessboard Killer’

Russia´s Alexander Pichushkin, then aged 33, was sentenced in 2007 to life in prison for 48 murders, most between 2002 and 2006.

His victims were mainly elderly alcoholic men whom he met in a park outside Moscow.

He threw them into a sewer where they drowned, later strangling or bludgeoning them with a hammer first after some managed to climb out. He threw one from a 16th floor.

Pichushkin said he wanted to kill one person for each of the 64 squares on a chessboard, and crossed out a square for every kill, earning him his nickname.
Chinese drifter

Yang Xinhai was executed in China in 2004, aged 35, after murdering 67 people in a three-year rampage that ended with his capture in 2003.

Characterised as an introverted drifter, he bicycled from one murder scene to the next, entering homes in rural areas and often slaughtering entire families using an axe, hammer or spade.

Police listed robbery and rape as motives but Yang was also described as a deranged killer who simply enjoyed what he was doing.
America´s worst

Gary Ridgway, a former truck painter, was handed 48 life sentences in 2003 after admitting to killing 48 prostitutes and runaways between 1982 and 1984, a murder spree that terrified Seattle. He was 54 years old at his conviction.

Nicknamed the “Green River Killer” after the waterway where his first five victims were found, he is the most prolific serial killer in US history.
‘Doctor Death’

A family doctor in northern England, Harold Shipman was sentenced to life in prison in 2000 after being convicted of killing 15 of his elderly patients by giving them fatal doses of morphine.

He hanged himself in prison in 2004, aged 57.

An inquiry the following year found that Shipman, nicknamed “Doctor Death”, had killed around 250 patients between 1971 and 1998, which made him the country´s worst-ever serial killer.
Travelling salesman

Luis Alfredo Garavito, a travelling salesman, was jailed for 835 years in 2000 aged 42 for murdering 189 boys aged between eight and 16 over a five-year span until 1996.

Known as “The Monster of Genova” after his birthplace in Colombia, Garavito met his victims by posing as a charity worker, salesman, monk or disabled person, among other disguises.

He lured them with food and drink and usually slit the children´s throats after raping and mutilating them. Some were beheaded.

Four of the murders took place in Ecuador.
Russian butcher

In 1992 Russian Andrei Chikatilo, 56, was sentenced to death for 52 sexually motivated killings of women, children and young people between 1978 and 1990.

The former teacher, known as the “Butcher of Rostov” after the far-eastern area where he was particularly active, was executed in 1994.
‘Monster of the Andes’

In 1980 Colombian Pedro Lopez Monsalve was arrested at a market in Ecuador after attempting to abduct a young girl. He later confessed to having strangled at least 310 children from poor backgrounds in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Initially accused of rape and murder of four children, the “Monster of the Andes” led police to a field where the bodies of 53 young girls were buried.

He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, the maximum term in Ecuador, and extradited in 1994 to Colombia where he was interned in a psychiatric hospital.

Freed several years later, he disappeared and would today be aged around 70.Paris, Oct 28, 2018 (AFP) -German nurse Niels Hoegel is on trial for at least 99 murders, having already been jailed for six, which would make him among the worst serial killers in recent history.

(media92news)
A pro-government Turkish newspaper on Wednesday published a gruesome recounting of the alleged slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, just as America’s top diplomat arrived in the country for talks over The Washington Post columnist’s disappearance.

The report by Yeni Safak adds to the ever-increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who vanished Oct 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told journalists before leaving Riyadh on Wednesday that Saudi leaders, including King Salman and his son, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, “made no exceptions on who they would hold accountable.”

“They made a commitment to hold anyone connected to any wrongdoing that may be found accountable for that, whether they are a senior officer or official,” Pompeo said.

However, no major decision is made outside of the ultraconservative kingdom’s ruling Al Saud family.

Khashoggi had fled the country last year amid the rise of Prince Mohammed, whom he wrote critically about in the Post.

The Yeni Safak report cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi’s slaying, which it said showed the writer was tortured.

The newspaper said Saudi Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi could be heard on the tape, telling those allegedly torturing Khashoggi: “Do this outside; you’re going to get me in trouble.”

The newspaper alleged that one of the Saudis torturing Khashoggi replied: “Shut up if you want to live when you return to (Saudi) Arabia.”

Saudi officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press in recent days. Al-Otaibi left Turkey on Tuesday afternoon, Turkish state media reported.

Security services in Turkey have used pro-government media to leak details of Khashoggi’s case, adding to the pressure on the kingdom.

President Donald Trump, who earlier warned of “severe punishment” if the kingdom was found culpable for Khashoggi’s disappearance, criticised the allegations against the kingdom and compared it to the accusations of sexual assault levelled against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

“Here we go again with you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Trump told the AP in an interview.

That attitude does not appear to be shared with Congress, as one prominent Republican senator said he believed that the crown prince, widely known as MBS, had Khashoggi “murdered.”

“This guy has got to go,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, speaking on Fox television.

“Saudi Arabia, if you’re listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself.”

On Tuesday, a high-level Turkish official told the AP that police found “certain evidence” of Khashoggi’s slaying at the consulate, without elaborating. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Police plan to search the Saudi consul general’s home, as well as some of the country’s diplomatic vehicles, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

Leaked surveillance video shows that diplomatic cars travelled to the consul general’s home shortly after Khashoggi went into the consulate.

Police put up barricades around the consul’s official residence Tuesday night. The search, however, did not happen overnight and reasons for that weren’t immediately clear.

Earlier on Tuesday, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the “inviolability or immunity” of people or premises granted under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations “should be waived immediately.”

That convention covers diplomatic immunity, as well as the idea that embassies and consulates sit on foreign soil in their host countries.

“Given there seems to be clear evidence that Mr Khashoggi entered the consulate and has never been seen since, the onus is on the Saudi authorities to reveal what happened to him,” Bachelet said.

Nils Melzer, the UN special investigator on torture, said that if Turkey and Saudi Arabia can’t conduct “a credible and objective investigation,” then international involvement may be needed.

Trump’s previous warnings over the case drew an angry response on Sunday from Saudi Arabia and its state-linked media, including a suggestion that Riyadh could wield its oil production as a weapon.

The US president has been after King Salman and OPEC to boost production to drive down high oil prices, caused in part by the coming re-imposition of oil sanctions on Iran.

Prominent US newspapers have reported, citing anonymous sources, that Saudi officials may soon acknowledge Khashoggi’s slaying at the consulate but blame it on a botched intelligence operation.

That could, like Trump’s softening comments, seek to give the kingdom a way out of the global firestorm of criticism over Khashoggi’s fate.

WASHINGTON: Melania Trump dismissed Friday the widespread talk about her husband President Donald Trump’s alleged affairs with a porn star and others, saying she has “more important things to think about”.

In an interview with ABC News, excerpts of which were broadcast early Friday, the US first lady did not deny her husband’s alleged history of philandering.

But Melania Trump insisted she doesn’t dwell on it.

“It is not a concern and focus of mine,” she said in the interview. “I’m a mother and a first lady, and I have much more important things to think about and to do.”

“I know people like to speculate and media like to speculate about our marriage,” she added.

“It’s not always pleasant, of course, but I know what is right and what is wrong and what is true and not true.”

Asked whether she loved her husband, she answered: “Yes, we are fine. It’s what media speculate, and it’s gossip. It’s not always correct stuff.”
‘Most bullied person’

ABC conducted the rare interview of the Slovenia-born 48-year-old former model and the president’s third wife while she was in Africa last week.

After living in the White House for nearly two years in the shadow of one of the most controversial and scandal-tarred presidents of modern times, she appeared confident but also controlled, keeping her answers to difficult questions short.

The interview came just over three weeks before the midterm congressional elections, in which Trump’s record is expected to play a big part in how voters cast their ballots.

Sitting in stretch jodhpurs with a safari pith helmet at her side, Trump gave a wry smile when asked about comments about her marriage from the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani had said in June that the first believes her husband’s denials about an affair a decade ago with stripper and porn movie star Stormy Daniels, and “knows it’s untrue”.

“I never talked to Mr Giuliani,” the first lady said.

ABC said the full interview will air later Friday, with Trump discussing her trip to Africa, her campaign against bullying and the controversies swirling around the president.

She gave a surprise answer to why she chose to fight against cyber-bullying with her “Be Best” campaign.

“I could say I’m the most bullied person in the world,” she said, or “one of them, if you really see what people are saying about me.”
First lady tribulations

Trump has predecessor who as American first ladies suffered gossip about their husbands’ alleged affairs.

Hillary Clinton endured husband Bill Clinton being impeached in 1998 for lying about his extramarital sex.

John F. Kennedy, president from 1961-63, was another serial cheater on wife Jackie, though his affairs were kept out of the news by a compliant media.

But talk of President Trump’s alleged history of sleeping with and then paying hush money to models and porn stars has been non-stop since he took office.

Mysterious and impenetrable, Melania is constantly scrutinised for her reaction: Is she holding his hand? Why aren’t they together much? Will she move back to New York with their son Barron?

She scoffed at such talk in the ABC interview. “I am enjoying it. I really love to live in Washington and the White House,” she said.

Trump has not given such a long interview since arriving in the US capital.

Katherine Jellison, an Ohio University historian, noted the timing of the interview coincides with intense scrutiny of men amid the #Metoo movement.

“The Trump administration has been under a lot of scrutiny on gender issues,” Jellison told AFP.

“So maybe she thought the timing was right to assert herself as a strong, independent woman, at a time when there was much negative press about the treatment of women in Trump’s America.”

Like past first ladies, Melania also faces criticism of her fashion choices, which lean toward well-cut, refined but not flashy clothes from Ralph Lauren and French-American designer Herve Pierre.

She took heavy flack in June when she wore a $39 Zara jacket that had “I really don’t care, do u?” written on the back, as she embarked on a trip to the Mexican border to see immigrant children who had been separated from their parents under her husband’s much-criticised policy.

It was unclear who was the target of that message.

Donning a pith helmet during her Nairobi stop last week, and then an Indiana Jones-style Panama hat while in Egypt, Melania Trump also drew fashion maven reprimands as “insensitive” to the continent’s colonial history.

Reporters should “talk about my trip and not what I wear,” she scolded during the journey.

It´s a simple leather briefcase, bearing the inscription “Sgt Alvin C York” in gold letters.

It belonged to a World War I hero who later founded a school for poor rural children.

When he was drafted in 1917 to go fight in France, York was a 30-year-old farmer with a third grade education.

“He had always lived in Tennessee, in a rural area, was never really exposed to the world,” his grandson, retired army colonel Gerald York, told AFP at his home in Alexandria, Virginia.

“When war came along, he did not know where they were fighting. He didn´t know anything about the people.”

In October 1918, Corporal York became a hero during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the Allied campaign that finally broke the German army.

Under heavy fire, York killed 25 German soldiers and took more than 100 prisoners during a harrowing mission to infiltrate enemy lines and take out machine gun positions.

He was promoted to sergeant and showered with military honors, including the Congressional Medal of Honor, America´s highest; the Croix de guerre; and the French Legion of Honor.

He received some 50 awards and medals in all, making him one of the war´s most decorated American soldiers.

After the armistice, he remained in France for several months before returning to New York to a hero´s welcome.

He then went back to his home in Jamestown, Tennessee and embarked on another stage in life.

“Because of what he had seen in France, in New York, because he felt his education was a real hindrance to him… he decided that education and better roads were going to be what he wanted for his community,” Gerald York said.

So York created a foundation, and traveled the country with his leather briefcase under his arm, using his fame as a war hero to raise funds for a rural school.

The Alvin C York Agricultural Institute opened in 1926.

For the first 10 years, even in the midst of the Great Depression, he paid for the teachers, the school buses and the construction of paved roads in the area.

York was a fervent Christian and member of a small pacifist congregation. According to his grandson, shortly before his death in 1964, he said: “What I want to be remembered for is my contribution to education.”

The Alvin C York Institute, now a public school, still exists today in Jamestown, Tennessee.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will host one of his most famous fans at the White House, musician Kanye West, to talk about prisons, jobs and what to do about violence in Chicago, the White House said on Tuesday.

West will have lunch with the Republican president and also meet with Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner on Thursday, according to the White House.

“Topics of discussions will include manufacturing resurgence in America, prison reform, how to prevent gang violence, and what can be done to reduce violence in Chicago,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn, Trump said West was a “terrific guy.”

“He loves what we’re doing for African-American jobs, for so many different things. Median incomes … is at all-time high. Poverty level at the best rate, meaning the lowest rate. And Kanye is a smart guy and he sees that,” Trump said.

The president said West would bring NFL Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown with him. “Big Jim Brown. … He was unstoppable. And he’s been a friend of mine,” Trump said.

West emerged as one of Trump’s most high-profile celebrity supporters during the 2016 presidential election campaign. He was booed at a concert shortly after the election for declaring his support for Trump, although he said he had not voted.

The influential rapper was booed again last month when he appeared on stage after the broadcast of the television show “Saturday Night Live” season premiere wearing a Trump campaign trademark red MAGA (Make America Great Again) hat.

On Monday, Trump pledged to end a “crime spree” in Chicago, where West grew up, and called for loosening restrictions on police in the third-largest US city to allow stopping and frisking suspects for weapons and other contraband.

In 2013, a federal judge ruled that the New York Police Department’s use of stop and frisk tactics disproportionately targeted black and Hispanic people, saying police had violated the US Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches.