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The Government’s Earthquake Commission Amendment Act passed by Parliament this week, empowers EQC to share more information about previous claims on a home. |
"Previously homeowners and prospective buyers could only get information about claims on a property where there was a deed of assignment from the former owner. This meant people couldn’t find out what EQC claims there had been on a property they owned or were looking to buy. People should still get a deed of assignment... |
"The changes we have made also allow EQC to share information to prevent or lessen a threat to public health or safety. |
"Extended information sharing is one of four changes made to the Earthquake Commission Act. We have also increased the time limits for claim notification to up to two years; to give people more time to lodge their claims. They will still need to show that the damage was the result of an event covered by EQC," says Mega... |
Further changes increasing the EQC cap on new claims and removing cover for contents, will come into effect from 1 July 2019 as people’s house and contents policies with their private insurer are renewed. |
"Increasing the cap EQC can pay on new claims to $150,000, from $100,000, recognises the increase in building costs and means less over-cap claims will need to be passed onto private insurers. |
"We have also removed EQC cover for contents and personal property, which will be picked up by private insurers. Removing cover for contents will focus all EQC’s claim management resources on resolving residential building and land damage claims. |
"These four common sense changes will improve the efficiency of New Zealand’s natural disaster insurance scheme and focus EQC’s claim managers on helping people fix their homes. |
"We’re making these changes ahead of the Inquiry into EQC and a further review of the EQC Act, as they are straight-forward improvements that fix identified issues with the scheme. These changes means that if the worst happened and there is another natural disaster, claims can be managed more efficiently," says Megan W... |
The Place: Pourtal Wine Tasting Bar, 104 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica; (310) 393-7693. |
The Hours: Mondays all night; Tuesday-Friday, 4-7 p.m. |
The Deals: $5 select wines and beer, $4 appetizers. |
The Digs: If you're looking for a place to plop down and enjoy a glass of bubbly, beer, or grape-inspired beverage, Pourtal is a good bet, with a patio overlooking the ocean and Santa Monica pier, along with a few vagabonds stumbling across the boardwalk. Next door to Robata Bar, the semi self-serve wine bar's interior... |
The Verdict: Happy hour wines at a restaurant or bar are oftentimes the house wine, a standard Chianti or Merlot. But at Pourtal, sommelier Rachel Bryan chooses a small handful of interesting wines each week, based on a theme or what she feels customers will enjoy. For five dollars you can sample high-end local and int... |
Now for the food. The burrata with warm crostini, pesto and fig compote; and the lamb sliders with tater tots, are both recommended. Abronson gets most of his cheeses from Andrew's Cheese Shop, while the produce comes from Santa Monica farmers market. The mini Kobe dogs and warm nuts are pretty great too, but it's the ... |
Washington: President Donald Trump will visit Pittsburgh later on Tuesday (US time) to pay tribute to the 11 victims of the mass shooting at a synagogue there - yet he is travelling with no official public itinerary, little planning, and without congressional and local leaders whom the White House invited on the trip. |
The White House asked the top four congressional leaders - House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer - to accompany Trump and first lady Melania Trump to Pittsburgh but all declined, according to three officials familiar... |
An aide to McConnell, who on Monday denounced the shootings as "hate crimes," said he was "unable to attend today" on Trump's visit to Pittsburgh, where 11 people were gunned down Saturday at Tree of Life synagogue. A spokeswoman for Ryan said the speaker wasn't able to make the trip on the short notice. |
A spokesman for the city's Democratic mayor, Bill Peduto, said he was invited but will not be appearing with the president. Peduto had urged Trump not to visit Pittsburgh until after the funerals for the victims had concluded, saying, "all attention [Tuesday] should be on the victims." |
Peduto also added: "We do not have enough public safety officials to provide enough protection at the funerals and to be able at the same time draw attention to a potential presidential visit." |
Senator Pat Toomey was also invited to join Trump in Pittsburgh, but a spokesman said Toomey will be attending previously scheduled commitments in the southeastern part of the state. Toomey has attended a vigil and met with law enforcement officials and Jewish leaders in Pittsburgh since the shooting, spokesman Steve K... |
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, both Democrats, are also not expected to attend with the president. Representative Mike Doyle who represents the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh where the shooting occurred, has not been invited by the White House, according to a s... |
City and local officials, who were not given any advance notice of the White House's plans before they were announced, are expecting at least two protests to coincide with the funerals. "No one wants him to come here today," said one person involved in the planning of the events. There are also concerns, the official s... |
Still, some of Trump's closest congressional allies defended the president's decision to travel to Pittsburgh Tuesday - a trip that comes ahead of a spate of campaign rallies that puts the president on the road through Election Day. |
"I'm glad that the president is going down," House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said on Tuesday on Fox News. "I think it's an important display that he goes down there to show that we're all Americans in these kind of tragedies, and we're going to stand with each other." |
When the advance team left for Pittsburgh on Monday night, there was little clear plan for Trump's schedule Tuesday, and it was tasked with organising a full day of events before he landed. He is scheduled to be on the ground for about four hours in the city, but the White House has not announced where the first couple... |
A White House official said Trump is not expected to speak in Pennsylvania. |
In an interview with Fox News that aired Monday night, Trump said that he was going to "pay my respects" and that he planned to visit officers and others who were wounded in the shooting. |
"I really look forward to going," Trump said. "I would have done it even sooner, but I didn't want to disrupt any more than they already had disruption." |
President Trump Donald John TrumpImpeachment? Not so fast without missing element of criminal intent Feds say marijuana ties could prevent immigrants from getting US citizenship Trump approval drops to 2019 low after Mueller report's release: poll MORE said Tuesday he is not looking to restart his administration’s prac... |
Trump, during an Oval Office meeting with the president of Egypt, denied that he was considering putting the policy back in place, but he vouched for its effectiveness as a deterrent to illegal border crossings. |
"We're not looking to do that, no," he said. |
Trump argued that without the ability to separate families who cross into the U.S. illegally, "it brings a lot more people to the border." But he maintained he was not looking to restart the practice. |
"Once you don’t have it, that’s why you see many more people coming. They’re coming like it’s a picnic because, 'let's go to Disneyland,'" he said. |
The Trump administration instituted a "zero-tolerance" immigration policy last year that directed law enforcement to criminally prosecute those caught crossing the border illegally, which subsequently led to the separation of thousands of migrant families. |
Amid intense backlash from lawmakers in both parties over the morality of the policy, Trump signed an executive order last June halting the separations after contending only Congress could address the problem. |
Multiple reports published Monday said the president wanted to reinstitute the policy as he attempts to clamp down on illegal border crossings. The reports said that outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Kirstjen Michele NielsenOvernight Energy: Mueller report reveals Russian efforts to so... |
The clash reportedly contributed to her resignation. Nielsen, whose resignation was announced Sunday night, had publicly defended the policy last year. |
Trump on Tuesday sought to dodge responsibility for the separations, insisting that the Obama administration had implemented a similar policy first. |
"President Obama had child separation," Trump said. "Take a look. The press knows it, you know it, we all know it. I’m the one that stopped it." |
Trump has made similar claims about Obama's policies in the past. Multiple fact-checkers have noted that the Obama administration separated children from their families at the border in limited cases, but that it did not have the same "zero-tolerance" policy instituted by the Trump administration. |
The Justice Ministry wants to cut red tape in insolvency proceedings. |
Declaring personal bankruptcy is not a frequently used way to eliminate one’s debts, though it is a quick way for people to return to a normal life. Just 391 people declared personal bankruptcies last year in Slovakia, while in the neighbouring Czech Republic, the number is several times higher. |
Current Slovak law makes personal bankruptcy difficult to obtain for ordinary people as the fees are too high and the process takes too long, lawyers say, but the Justice Ministry wants to change that. |
“We want it to be an easy, quick and low-cost proceeding,” Justice Minister Lucia Žitňanská said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. |
The ministry has already submitted the amendment for interdepartmental review. It wants the new rules to come into force as of next year. Lawyers welcome the change, saying it will simplify the process, but some warn of certain risks it may bring. |
Under the current rules, people willing to declare personal bankruptcy need to pay €663.50 as an advance payment to a trustee and own a property worth some €1,700, according to lawyer Daniela Ježová. |
Moreover, those declaring personal bankruptcy may expected a two-step process. Every debtor needs to finance the bankruptcy, which means that their property is converted into money. Only then the actual process of debt relief starts, but it takes a further three years, adds lawyer Radovan Pala from the Taylor Wessing l... |
Unofficial results of the June 5 primary election show Sheriff Carlos G. Bolanos retaining his position as head of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, a position he has held since July 2016, when he was appointed by a 3-2 vote of the Board of Supervisors after his predecessor announced plans to retire. |
The results announced in a June 7 update show 59.3 percent of voters choosing Bolanos over his two challengers: Deputy Mark. D. Melville, who had received 40.7 percent, and write-in candidate Deputy Heinz Puschendorf, for whom results have not yet been made available. Another update was due June 12 at 4:30 p.m., after ... |
The June 7 results show the elections office having counted 66,467 ballots, with Bolanos receiving 39,414 votes and Melville, 27,053 votes. |
This election is the first since at least 1998 in which the incumbent or the second-in-command to a retiring sheriff has shared the ballot with a challenger, according to county voting archives. It's also the first election over those two decades in which the winner did not take office with at least 98 percent of the v... |
One factor that likely contributed to the unusually good showing of a candidate facing an incumbent in the race for San Mateo County sheriff is the 2007 incident in which Bolanos and then-sheriff Greg Munks were detained by Las Vegas police in connection with an FBI sting operation involving illegal brothels. |
Police found Munks inside an illegal brothel. Although Bolanos was reported to be on the premises, he told The Almanac that he did not enter the brothel. Both men were detained, but neither was charged with a crime. Bolanos was serving as undersheriff at the time. |
Details of the incident remain murky 11 years afterwards, but the matter has surfaced in the public arena regularly during the election season. |
Go to is.gd/Vguide more on this year's candidates. |
Go to is.gd/SOdonations for information on candidate fundraising. |
This story contains 315 words. |
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is believed to be staying north of Pyongyang as he recovers from an undisclosed illness, South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo said Tuesday. |
Kim has not been seen in public for over a month. |
During a parliamentary audit of his ministry on Tuesday, Han was asked about the whereabouts of the North Korean leader. |
He said some media reports about Kim are true and some are false, but "I believe that we get highly credible information from the intelligence unit of the defense ministry. We are doing all we can to grasp the situation." |
Fall in love with this 3+ bedroom, 2 bath home nestled in on a 1.16 Acre lot, just down from Lake Pokegama and Zorba's beach bar. Enjoy easy access to one of Itasca County's most sought-after lake. Once inside you'll love the grand staircase and large facade of windows, they truly take center stage in this lovely home.... |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin’s trading volume dropped to a two-year low in March, digital currency trading tool provider TradeBlock said in a report on Thursday, as investors remained spooked by increased regulatory scrutiny. |
Bitcoin volume in the top five digital currency exchanges totaled $2.14 billion last month, the lowest since April 2017 when volume was just $845.7 million. |
The original cryptocurrency, bitcoin has dropped more than 70 percent since hitting an all-time high of nearly $20,000 in December 2017, a slump that has spread to all digital currencies. |
A global regulatory crackdown led by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has created concerns about greater oversight and acceptance of digital currencies as payments, taking the wind out of the once red-hot virtual assets. |
Coinbase’s trading volume for March was $1.6 billion, a two-year low as well, TradeBlock data showed. |
TradeBlock’s research also showed that as volumes declined, digital currency exchanges began raising trading fees in 2018 and 2019. |
“An increase in trading fees is in line with expectations that exchanges are looking to protect revenues, amidst continually dampened trading volumes,” TradeBlock said. |
Mechatronics instructor Demetrius Wilson works with Kimani Ellison, 17, from Pontiac, on electronics testing procedures at the Oakland County Schools Technical Campus in Pontiac. |
Despite a renewed effort to improve skilled trades training under Gov. Rick Snyder, Michigan's vocational education for high school students is still failing. |
The good news is overdue changes to the system are imminent, but the state has a long way to go to align education to the needs of employers. |
In February, Snyder's 21st Century Education Commission is expected to release a set of recommendations to the state Department of Education to rectify long-standing issues with vocational education, but it's not yet known whether it will succeed. |
While the failure of vocational education began several decades ago as legislators and educational stakeholders began devaluing vocational ed in favor of pushing students into four-year colleges, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm solidified the state's position — skilled labor no longer mattered, according to local experts... |
In 2004, Granholm formed the Cherry Commission with the mission of doubling college enrollment, resulting in the Michigan Merit Curriculum — a set of curriculum requirements for every student to increase college preparedness. |
At the time, the requirements created one of the most rigorous eighth grade-through-high school graduation programs in the country. The result was an increased pipeline of students going to four-year institutions, but left students enrolled in vocational education spread thin across college prep courses and skilled lab... |
"We're held to this curriculum (Michigan Merit) even though it's not working for everyone," said Mary Kaye Aukee, executive director of career-focused education for Oakland Schools. "The world has changed. College degrees don't guarantee a fruitful career anymore. Being a productive citizen is having a productive caree... |
The result was a drop in students taking vocational education classes statewide. In the 2006-07 school year, more than 136,000 Michigan students were enrolled in at least one vocational class in high school. That figure dropped to fewer than 108,000 during the 2015-16 school year — leaving a gap between supply and dema... |
Vocational education has become much more than the shop class many remember from high school. Training now focuses on advanced aspects of industry, such as green building standards in construction alongside carpentry; agricultural sciences including hydroponics; robotics and design; and computer networking and developm... |
Nearly 47,000 jobs requiring less than an associate's degree were posted on the state's jobs site, mitalent.org, in the last month. The state is also estimating there is a need for 15,000 new skilled trades workers annually through the next decade with average annual wages of $51,000, according to the Michigan Labor Ma... |
However, those wages can be much higher, said Adam Bowden, vice president of Hazel Park-based machining and fabricating shop P&G Technologies Inc. |
Bowden said his machinists are averaging more than 70 hours per week, with yearly wages as high as $80,000 with overtime. |
P&G is currently looking to hire two more machinists and is struggling to fill the jobs. |
"We're really busy right now," Bowden said. "We need people with a mechanical inclination, and they're not getting that from a four-year institution. Whatever we're doing now is obviously a failure. We need more workers now." |
At the heart of the issues, Aukee said, is that under the Michigan Merit Curriculum, students interested in vocational education are forced to complete the same courses as students destined for a four-year liberal arts education — such as four credits of mathematics, three credits of science and two credits of language... |
"We are, in many cases, academic snobs," Aukee said. "Courses in advanced manufacturing, or even welding, are no less rigorous than studying social studies or philosophy. We should embrace those differences and understand there's a connection between economic development and education." |
Roger Curtis, the new director of the Michigan Department of Talent and Economic Development, said Snyder's administration agrees there is a problem with the vocational education system and desperately wants to change it. |
"Our infrastructure isn't set up statewide to do this yet," said Curtis, the former president of Michigan International Speedway. "Programs vary widely across the state, so this has become a very, very complicated issue. There's not a 'break glass and pull' solution." |
Curtis said despite universal education requirements under the Michigan Merit Curriculum, vocational education is fractured, with different types of credit requirements, different credit hours between different intermediate school districts with some vocational campuses tied to millages. Some programs receive upward of... |
The Oakland Schools Technical Campuses, for instance, are primarily funded by a countywide millage that relies on revenue based on property values, which plummeted during the Great Recession. Between 2004 and 2011, more than 200 OSTC staff members were eliminated alongside furloughs and pay reductions. |
The millage is also structured so that students can't begin vocational education until their junior year. Comparatively, students at Macomb Intermediate Schools can begin vocational training as freshmen. |
Aukee said the difference is in delivery, where students in Oakland County travel to the campus for 2.5 hours per day, compared with under an hour each day at the home school of students in Macomb County. |
Beau Everitt, a machine tool technology faculty member at Oakland Community College and former vocational teacher at OSTC, said pushing students toward universities and colleges eroded funding from vocational programs, especially for certificate programs. |
Student welder Sara Dobson, 17, of Lake Orion, practices test welds at the Oakland County Schools Technical Campus in Pontiac. |
He said he's only had one student entering his program at OCC with a certificate the college accepts toward credits. |
"You can be 15 years old and take certification tests," Everitt said. "We're not seeing that anymore because the funding went away, so we're not offering these kids proper training." |
The ultimate goal for the state may be to find a new solution that alters the tenets of the Michigan Merit Curriculum to make it easier for vocational students, and a recommendation from the Snyder administration to state legislators is expected in as early as 45 days, Curtis said. He declined to comment further on the... |
But the Snyder administration may see opposition on any proposed changes to the curriculum. In 2014, two house bills were signed into law that allowed for credits in vocational education courses to count toward the Algebra II requirement, expanded the foreign language requirement to include credits earned as early as k... |
The Department of Education opposed the bill, along with some legislators. Opponents claimed the bills watered down the state's education system, making Michigan students less competitive than in other countries, MLivereported. |
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