DATE ISSUED: Thursday, July 20, 2017 @ 12:00 LST (16:00 UTC)

VALID UNTIL: Friday midday (12:00 LST) July 21, 2017

WEATHER: 

This afternoon through Friday midday: Partly cloudy and breezy, becoming cloudy at times with passing showers.

Forecast High: 31°C / 88°F             Forecast Low: 27°C / 81°F

Sunset Today: 6:51 P.M.                 Sunrise Tomorrow: 5:47 A.M.

SURFACE WINDS: 

This afternoon through Friday midday: East-northeast to east with a moderate to fresh breeze of 11 to 20 miles per hour, with higher gusts.

SYNOPSIS:  
A surface to mid-level trough is expected to traverse the region during this forecast period. As a result, a surge of moisture embedded in the wind flow will result in cloudiness and passing showers across the local area.

Seas will continue to subside today, therefore, the small craft advisory is cancelled. Nevertheless, small craft operators and sea bathers should continue exercising caution across local waters due to seas peaking near 7  feet and breezy conditions.

STATE OF THE SEA: Moderate            WAVES/SWELLS: 5 to 7 feet

SPECIAL FEATURE:  None.

OUTLOOK through Saturday midday: Partly cloudy, hazy and breezy, becoming cloudy at times with isolated showers.

FORECASTER: Gordon

ANGUILLA--On Monday, July 17, the Royal Anguilla Police Force charged 26-year-old Dennis Brooks of North Side, and 29-year-old Kieron Broodie of East End with conspiracy to commit fraud.

  The arrest came as a result of the continued investigation by members of the Traffic Department and the Inland Revenue concerning the fraudulent issue of Anguillian drivers’ licenses. It follows the arrest of Deion Richardson, who was arrested last week for fraud and issuing illegal licences. The alleged offenders appeared before the Magistrate on Monday, July 17, and were granted bail in the sum of EC $70,000, with two sureties each. They were both ordered by the court to report to the Valley Police Station every Monday and Friday, between the hours of 6:00am and 6:00pm.  Brooks was also ordered to hand over all travel documents and not leave the island by any means without the permission of the court.

St. Maarten Nature Foundation stands corrected. Its press release about illegal dumping of raw sewage at the landfill published in the paper of June 30 turned out to be incorrect (see related story).

Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI Christopher Emmanuel said the pump truck had in fact been working for the Ministry at the time. The crew had cleared a drainage pit and the collected muck that supposedly included oil could not be processed at the wastewater purification plant on Illidge Road.

It was therefore taken to a designated area of the dump. While admitting that this is not an ideal situation, Emmanuel pointed out that it’s been going on for years.

The heavy equipment operator in question was consequently unfairly being targeted after only doing what Government ordered and this could lead to a court case the Minister is trying to prevent. Mention was also made of the possible involvement of civil servants in recording and disseminating a video of the incident.

That is all well and good, but it does raise questions about what apparently ends up in St. Maarten’s regular rainwater runoff systems, so bad that the sewage plant can’t handle it. Surely the content should not include foreign substances such as petro-chemical waste.

Part of the reason may have to do with a complete lack of zoning by that same Ministry, which has led to all kinds of businesses opening up in residential areas. Many of these garages and other industrial-type activities fail to adhere to even minimum standards regarding, for example, waste disposal.

It’s called pollution.          

Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte does not want dual citizenship (see Tuesday paper). He rejected a request to revaluate forcing Dutchmen to give up their passports when they become citizens of other countries.

The policy also works the opposite way, in the sense that foreign residents wishing to become Dutch too must relinquish their original nationality. That is of some importance to St. Maarten, where hundreds of people are naturalised on an annual basis.

It turns out some countries actually don’t allow their subjects to give up their citizenship. Others officially agree so the people involved can get their papers, but in reality would never execute such a measure.

Rutte argues that the “real and factual” connection to the homeland ends when ties with other countries become greater. However, 22,000 persons living abroad who signed the petition of “Once a Dutch national, always a Dutch national” apparently disagree.

According to the organisation led by Eelco Keij, there are in fact more than a million Dutchmen (six per cent of the population) residing elsewhere. In his opinion the current government in The Hague has an old-fashioned viewpoint that no longer makes sense in times of globalisation and associated migration of people.

He hopes the next cabinet being formed will show more compassion and a mentality change, even though Rutte’s VVD is still the biggest party in the prospective new coalition. Nevertheless, perhaps other potential governing partners can convince VVD that its position indeed seems out of touch with the realities of today’s world.

HAMILTON, Bermuda--The Progressive Labour Party (PLP) Tuesday swept the One Bermuda Alliance (OBA) out of power in the general elections.
The result prompted former Premier Michael Dunkley to step down as OBA leader and his losing deputy to quit politics altogether.
The PLP won 24 of the 36 seats in the House of Assembly, while OBA took the other 12, which meant that none of the five independent candidates – including former Premier Paula Cox – got any success at the polls.
In addition to holding on to the 17 seats it won in the 2012 election, the PLP captured seven others from the OBA, including some regarded as safe seats for the former ruling party.
PLP leader David Burt was on Wednesday sworn in as Premier – the youngest in Bermuda’s history.
While Dunkley won his seat, his deputy in Government and in the party, Bob Richards, lost his to the PLP’s Christopher Famous.
The Royal Gazette reported this morning that Dunkley resigned as party leader after the election defeat.
Meanwhile, the defeated OBA deputy leader, who first entered the House of Assembly as a Member of Parliament (MP) in 2007, announced that he would no longer continue in active politics.
“I’ve done my best. This has accelerated my retirement from politics,” Richards said. ~ Caribbean360 ~

GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands--A leading hospital in the Caribbean is offering another first that could save the lives of heart patients across the Caribbean and the world.

PARIS--EU judges will have to decide whether Alphabet's Google has to remove certain web search results globally to comply with a previous privacy ruling after France's supreme administrative court referred the issue to the top EU court.

LONDON--Central banks struggling to lift historically low interest rates and rein in stimulus programmes may have more on their minds than just getting back to normal -- they are, by some accounts, nowhere near ready to deal with the next recession or crisis.

BEIJING--A Chinese female blogger who posed as a man's Lunar New Year girlfriend says her experience illustrates the generational tensions over finding a marriage partner in China.

NEW YORK--Madonna attempted on Tuesday to stop an upcoming auction of a prison break-up letter from rapper Tupac Shakur and a note in which she called singer Whitney Houston and actress Sharon Stone "horribly mediocre."

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Wednesday a bid by President Donald Trump to include grandparents and other relatives of Americans in his travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries.

WASHINGTON--A congressional panel wants to interview President Donald Trump's eldest son, his former campaign chairman and all others who were at a June 2016 meeting with Russian nationals, part of investigations into allegations that Moscow meddled in the U.S. election campaign, senators said on Tuesday.

GENEVA--Donald Trump is one of a new breed of leaders around the world who seek to use their democratic mandate to undermine the rule of law, the head of a legal and human rights watchdog said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON/CARACAS--The Trump administration is preparing sanctions against several senior Venezuelan government figures, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, to pressure President Nicolas Maduro to abort plans for a controversial congress foes say would cement dictatorship.

Michael Parris bested a field of 10 shooters to win the weekly RH Pool Club Sunday Tournament.  Playing at the 8/9 Pool Bar in Sucker garden, Parris beat out Willkings Richardson in the Final.  Sunday the game was 10-Ball. This week the Club will play 8-Ball.

SERRE-CHEVALIER, France- - Chris Froome kept control of his rivals in a gruelling Alpine ride to move a step closer to a fourth Tour de France title on Wednesday, retaining the leader's yellow jersey after the 17th stage, won by Slovenia's Primoz Roglic.

There are not enough words for me to use to describe what Roger Snow has meant to me and my family. There are not enough ways for me to express gratitude to the man who literally saved my life. I say this without any reservation or hesitation. Roger Snow saved my life.

To Mary, Gordon, Hanneke, Dickie, Jelmer, Paul, Steven, Junior and the rest of the family I extend deepest condolences on behalf of my family. I am truly sorry that I am away at this time but please know that Roger meant the world to me and I will miss him dearly. It was not easy the last few years watching illness deprive us of the Roger we knew. He can now rest on.

I met Roger in January of 1995 when I was at a crossroad in my life, totally unsure what to do with my future. I was jobless, spiraling into depression and a feeling of complete failure was drowning me. By God’s will an opportunity opened in the night layout department at the then infant Daily Herald. Not expecting much, I viewed it as another temporary job that I would soon leave. As history would attest, however, I didn’t leave soon at all. In fact, I’m still there in some shape or form, 22 years later.

I stuck around because Roger Snow, this impressive, compassionate, witty, unselfish human being made it his business to make me understand and appreciate that my life had worth. He didn’t care what my background was, he only cared that I remain constructively active by involving myself in all aspects of newspaper operations, and with his assistance and influence become a solid citizen and contributor in my community.

He afforded me the opportunity serve as layout artist, graphic artist, night editor and journalist at The Daily Herald. He founded Teen Times, not me, I only had the privilege to guide and develop what he called “Herald’s contribution to the youth of St. Maarten.” From Teen Times to serving on more than 10 community and cultural organizations, to starting my own PR company and all the accolades in between … it all started with Roger Snow. Had he not saved me and given me a chance, none of that would have been possible and God knows where I would have been today.

He was a giant of a man in stature and character. But make no mistake, he was not always a gentle giant and with good reason. There were times he dished out some tough love. Some very tough love. He never sugarcoated anything for me as I was typically extremely stubborn and headstrong. He would often yell “Mike! You are wrong! Get over yourself!” and then proceed to give me the verbal dressing down that I deserved.

One of our “discussions” became so heated in our little office on Front Street, I started to cry. A grown man, I broke down in front of another grown man like a baby. I wasn’t crying because I was hurt or insulted or upset. Tears ran because I wanted so much to impress that man. I hated letting him down. In typical Roger style, he never let you stay down, he found a way to lift you back up.

You know a person has influenced your life positively when you can remember almost everything he has ever told you. Roger’s words have stuck with me throughout my life and I still live by them. He often shared those words while taking a puff on his pipe on our office porch in Philipsburg when electricity went and we didn’t have a generator, or when we were waiting on film to develop, or when we took a break from laying out the paper together which we often did side-by-side. Even in those dark days after Hurricane Luis when we finished work at 7:00 in the morning and he had to drive all of us home.

He cared about my family and my activities. He cared about my general knowledge and saw to it that I was educated in the ways of journalism, human nature, politics, life. He was steadfast in his belief that the newspaper plays a vital role in the community and never allowed me to forget for whom and why we produce The Daily Herald.

Many people have asked me over the years why I’ve stayed loyal or maintained a strong link with The Daily Herald. My answer has never changed: because Roger Snow saved my life. I remained loyal to him, to a friend and mentor.

I will miss my friend and mentor dearly.

Mike Granger

Dear Queenie,

My father went away to college after he got my mother pregnant and after he graduated he got a job in the United States and she never heard from him again.

Now I’m all grown up and married with children and he’s retired and he’s come back here to live and all of a sudden he wants to make up for lost time and get to know me and his grandkids.

Queenie, he didn’t care anything about me when I was growing up but now he expects me to be a loving son. How do I get him to just leave me alone like he has always done?—Not interested

Dear Not interested,

Tell him what you have told me. Repeat as often and as emphatically as necessary. However, you first might want to listen to his version of why he never kept in touch with you and your mother. You might learn something interesting, something that might change your poor opinion of him.