Author: Selleco

Thousands marched Wednesday in Caracas in support of President Nicolas Maduro, two days after the United States imposed the toughest sanctions yet on Venezuela.  National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello, considered the country’s second most powerful leader, called the latest sanctions “a new aggression amongst the madness of genocides that govern the United States.”    Others at Wednesday’s rally accused President Donald Trump of wanting to “get his hands” on Venezuela.    Reporters in Caracas said most of those marching were government workers and militia members.    The Trump administration has banned all U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with the Maduro government as part of U.S. pressure to drive him from power.    The U.S. was the first of more than 50 countries to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president.     Guaido declared himself Venezuelan leader in January, using his constitutional authority as the National Assembly president to declare Maduro’s   re-election last year illegitimate because of fraud.    Russia, China, Iran and Cuba are Maduro’s top defenders.    Guaido’s popular uprising against Maduro earlier this year appears to have lost much of its steam, but the U.S. is still determined to see Maduro go and says military action is still on the table.    The collapse of world energy prices, corruption and failed socialist policies have wrecked the oil-rich Venezuelan economy. Basic food staples and fuel are in severely short supply, and millions of Venezuelans have fled the country.    Maduro has refused to consider early elections and has used violence against anti-government …

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake rattled Taiwan on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. The quake struck at 5:28 a.m. (21:28 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in northeastern Yilan county. Taiwan’s central weather bureau put its magnitude at 6.0. High rises swayed in the capital Taipei, waking people up from their sleep. Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by quakes. In April, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit the island, disrupting traffic and injuring 17 people. Taiwan’s worst tremor in recent decades was a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 that killed about 2,400 people.   …

TOPEKA, KANSAS — Kansas plans to impose what some tax experts said Wednesday would be the nation’s most aggressive policy for collecting state and local taxes on online sales, possibly inviting a legal battle.    The state Department of Revenue issued a notice last week saying any “remote seller” doing business with Kansas residents must register with the department, collect state and local sales taxes, and forward the revenues to the state, starting Oct. 1. It cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year allowing states to collect sales taxes on Internet sales.    Most states now have policies to collect such taxes, but almost all set minimum annual sales or transaction thresholds to exempt small businesses, according to groups tracking tax laws. Kansas is the first to attempt to collect the taxes without exempting any businesses, they said.     The Republican-controlled Legislature included provisions on taxing Internet sales in two tax-cutting bills this year, but Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed both measures, saying they would destabilize the state’s finances. The Department of Revenue is imposing its new policy under an existing tax law that applied to out-of-state businesses but wasn’t being enforced because past court decisions prevented it.  ‘Insane’   “I think they’re insane,” said Diane Yetter, founder of the Sales Tax Institute in Chicago. Later, she added, “I just think Kansas is setting itself up for a lawsuit — and embarrassment, truthfully.”    Kansas Revenue Secretary Mark Burghart, a veteran tax attorney himself, said during an interview that the …

Ayaz Gul in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report. As Kashmir remained locked down for a second straight day, India’s parliament approved scrapping the special status that gave Kashmir significant autonomy, and passed a bill to split the state.  Plunged in a communications blackout and a virtual shutdown, it has been difficult to ascertain the reaction local residents to the radical steps. Curfew-like restrictions continued on Tuesday. Troops patrolled deserted streets with barbed wire barricades in the capital, Srinagar, while the internet, mobile and landlines remained suspended to stem protests in the region wracked by a violent separatist struggle for three decades.    The measures passed by an overwhelming majority in the lower house of parliament are being seen as a message that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a tough stance on Kashmir and with rival Pakistan, with whom India has a long-running dispute over control of the Himalayan region.  After the vote, Modi called it a “momentous occasion in our parliamentary democracy.” In a tweet he said, “Together we are, together we shall rise, and together we will fulfill the dreams of 130 crore Indians!” The steps fulfill a long-standing pledge of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to end the constitutional provision that allowed Kashmir to have its own constitution and draft its own laws on all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications.  Supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) light firecrackers and celebrate the government revoking Kashmir’s special status, in Lucknow, India, Tuesday, Aug. …

The Buddhist enclave of Ladakh cheered India’s move to break it away from Jammu and Kashmir state, a change that could spur tourism and help New Delhi counter China’s influence in the contested western Himalayas. Beijing, though, criticized the announcement, made on Monday by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a wider policy shift that also ended Jammu and Kashmir’s right to set its own laws. In a statement on Tuesday, China said the decision was unacceptable and undermined its territorial sovereignty. Ladakh is an arid, mountainous area of around 59,146 square kilometers (22,836 square miles), much of it uninhabitable, that only has 274,000 residents. The rest of Jammu and Kashmir is roughly 163,090 square kilometres (62,969 square miles) with a population of some 12.2 million. China and India still claim vast swaths of each other’s territory along their 3,500 km (2,173 mile) Himalayan border. FILE – The sun sets in Leh, the largest town in the region of Ladakh, nestled high in the Indian Himalayas, India, Sept. 26, 2016. The Asian rivals had a two-month standoff at the Doklam plateau in another part of the remote Himalayan region in 2017. “The fact that India took this move … can be seen as one way that India is trying to counter growing Chinese influence in the region,” said Sameer Patil, a Mumbai-based fellow in international security studies at the Gateway House think-tank. In a statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China contests the …

Small-satellite launch firm Rocket Lab announced on Tuesday a plan to recover the core booster of its Electron rocket using a helicopter, a bold cost-saving concept that, if successful, would make it the second company after Elon Musk’s SpaceX to reuse an orbital-class rocket booster. “Electron is going reusable,” Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck said during a presentation in Utah, showing an animation of the rocket sending a payload into a shallow orbit before speeding back through Earth’s atmosphere. “Launch frequency is the absolute key here.”  The Auckland, New Zealand-based company is one of a growing cadre of launch companies looking to slash the cost of sending shoebox-sized satellites to low Earth orbit, building smaller rockets and reinventing traditional production lines to meet a growing payload demand. Electron, which has flown seven missions so far, can send up to 496 pounds (225 kg) into space for roughly $7 million. Medium-class launchers such as Los Angeles-based Relativity Space can send up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) into space for $10 million while Cedar Park, Texas-based firm Firefly can do it for $15 million. FILE – A SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., June 25, 2019. Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which reignites its engines to land steadily back on Earth “propulsively” after much larger missions costing around $62 million, Rocket Lab’s Electron will deploy a series of parachutes to slow its fall through what Beck called “the …

Advocacy groups sued the Trump administration on Tuesday in an effort to block a rule published last month that expands the number of migrants who can be subject to a sped-up deportation process without oversight by an immigration judge. The rule, published in the Federal Register on July 23, broadened the practice of “expedited removal” to apply to anyone arrested anywhere nationwide who entered the United States illegally and cannot prove they have lived continuously in the country for at least two years. Previously, only migrants caught within 100 miles of a U.S. border and who had been in the country for 14 days or less were subject to the fast-track process. Under expedited removal, migrants are not entitled to a review of their cases in front of an immigration judge or access to an attorney. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Immigration Council on behalf of three immigration rights groups, claims the government did not go through the proper procedures in issuing the rule and says it violates due process and U.S. immigration laws. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on the filing. President Donald Trump has struggled to stem an increase of mostly Central American families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, leading to overcrowded detention facilities and a political battle over immigration that is inflaming tensions in the country.  In El Paso, Texas, last weekend a gunman killed 22 people after apparently posting …

Tunisia’s biggest political party Ennahda named a candidate for presidential elections on Tuesday, the first time the moderate Islamist party has put up a nominee for the post since the country transitioned to democracy after the 2011 revolution. Party vice president Abdel Fattah Mourou, 71, a lawyer, will run in elections due to be held two months early on Sept. 15 following the death of president Beji Caid Essebsi last month. Liberal Prime Minister Youssef Chahed will also stand, his Tahaya Tounes party said last week, making him one of the likely frontrunners to succeed Essebsi. Other candidates who have announced their intention to run include liberal former Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and Moncef Marzouki, who served as interim president for three years after autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled. Essebsi was chosen in the first democratic presidential election in 2014. FILE – Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi gestures during a press conference in Tunis, Oct. 25, 2018. One of Ennahda’s most moderate leaders, Mourou has long demanded reforms to the party to make it more open and to distance it from the Muslim Brotherhood in other Arab countries. Critics say Mourou is two-faced, however, and holds contradictory positions on the role of the Islam in society. “Mourou is a highly regarded figure in Tunisia, he is able to unite Tunisians and to find consensus between rivals. This is what Tunisia needs now,” Imed Khmiri, a senior Ennahda official, told Reuters. Mourou is currently acting speaker of parliament …

Ugandan musician and opposition leader Bobi Wine is urging police to investigate the death of one of his supporters who died from injuries sustained during torture by unknown abductors. Wine said the victim, an entertainer whose stage name was Zigy Wyne, was missing an eye and two fingers when he was found dumped outside a hospital. He was hospitalized for a week before his death Sunday. Wine’s statement said that supporters of his People Power movement have been targeted by state agents. Joel Ssenyonyi, a spokesman for People Power, said Tuesday that until police find contrary evidence the group presumes the torture was politically motivated.   Police spokesman Fred Enanga told reporters that police are investigating and urged the victim’s relatives to provide information to authorities.   …

The European Union says its door remains open should British Prime Minister Boris Johnson want to discuss his country’s departure from the bloc but it insists that the Brexit divorce agreement cannot be renegotiated. EU Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Tuesday that the Brexit agreement “is the best possible deal” that Britain is going to get. Johnson says he will take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal, raising fears of a damaging no-deal exit. He says the backstop arrangement to keep goods flowing smoothly between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland in the U.K. would bind his country to European trade rules and must be dropped from the Brexit agreement. Breidthardt says Brussels is available should Britain “wish to hold talks and clarify its position in more detail.” …

The scars from the nine bullets the gunman fired into Temel Atacocugu run down his left side like knotty rope. But it’s the recurring mental images from that day at the mosque that he often finds hardest to cope with: The gunman’s face. The puff of smoke from his gun. The worshippers falling as they clamored to escape. After coming so close to dying nearly five months ago, Atacocugu feels he has been “reborn.” And this week he plans to express his gratitude to God for being given the chance for a new life when he participates in the hajj, the holy Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The 44-year-old kebab shop co-owner is among 200 survivors and victims’ relatives from the Christchurch mosque shootings who are traveling to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman. The king is paying for their airfare, accommodation and travel costs, a bill that will run well over $1 million. The group will also travel to holy sites in Medina. Lives Forever Changed by Christchurch Shootings On a small farm on the outskirts of Christchurch in New Zealand, Omar Nabi digs a small hole and sharpens a knife as he prepares to slaughter a sheep as a blessing to his father — a victim of the mass killings at the Al Noor mosque. Hunched between his father’s collection of rusted cars, Nabi softly said a prayer and slit the animal’s neck, facing it towards Mecca. He removed the pelt and prepared the meat for cooking. Blood …

Pakistan began a special joint session of its parliament Tuesday to discuss a possible response a day after rival India revoked the special status for Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region both the countries claim in its entirety. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan plans to address the lawmakers to explain his government’s future plan of action. FILE – An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Aug. 2, 2019. India added a special provision to its constitution in 1949 providing autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir, allowing the region to have its own constitution, a separate flag and independence over all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications.  India’s Hindu nationalist-led government scrapped the constitutional provision on Monday. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has long campaigned for ending the special status granted to Kashmir, saying it hampered development and encouraged youth there to join insurgents fighting Indian rule. Pakistan swiftly condemned and rejected Monday’s announcements by India as “illegal steps.” “No unilateral step by the government of India can change this disputed status, as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. Nor will this ever be acceptable to the people of Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. The country’s top military commanders held a special meeting Tuesday to review the security situation in the wake of India’s controversial move. Following its special meeting Tuesday the Pakistani army said in a statement that Islamabad had never recognized the …

Aid groups have slammed the Saudi-led coalition for its closure of the airport in Yemen’s capital, saying it’s prevented thousands of sick civilians from traveling abroad for urgent medical treatment. The Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE say the Sanaa airport’s three-year closure has amounted to a “death sentence” for many sick Yemenis. They appealed late Monday on Yemen’s warring parties to come to an agreement to reopen the airport for commercial flights to “alleviate humanitarian suffering caused by the closure.” The Saudi-led coalition, backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government, has been at war with the rebels, known as Houthis, since 2015, and has imposed a blockade on ports that supply Houthi-controlled areas.   Mohammed Abdi, the NRC’s director in Yemen, says there’s “no justification” for standing in the way of life-saving treatment.   …

The Greek Orthodox Church says it has filed a new lawsuit against a Jewish settler group in a bid to overturn an Israeli Supreme Court decision upholding the sale of three properties in predominantly Palestinian parts of Jerusalem’s Old City. The Patriarchate claimed in a statement Monday that it had “clear proof” of corruption in the long-disputed 2004 sale of Old City properties, including two Palestinian-run hotels. In June, the court ruled in favor of the Israeli organization, which seeks to increase the Jewish presence in Palestinian areas of the contested holy city. Most Orthodox Christians in Jerusalem are Palestinian, and the sale of the properties to Israelis sparked outrage. Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians seek it as capital of a future state.   …

The United States might seem more divided than ever, but that could be because Americans have a distorted impression of people with opposing political views. “Democrats and Republicans overestimate the proportion of people on the other side of the political aisle who hold extreme views by a factor of about two,” says Daniel Yudkin, associate director of research at More in Common. “So, another way of saying that is that there are about half as many people with extreme views on the other side than Democrats and Republicans think.”  For example, 87% of Republicans say “properly controlled immigration can be good for America.” But Democrats believe only about half of Republicans would agree with that statement. And while Republicans think almost half of Democrats believe “most police are bad people,” the reality is that far fewer Democrats, 15%, agree with that supposition. A recent More in Common report finds that this perception gap is created by extremists in both parties who tend to have the loudest voices, in part because they are extremely active on social and traditional media. “So, when people are learning and hearing the voices of the people they think are on the other side, they’re actually hearing the voices of the most extreme contingent of those groups,” says Yudkin, a co-author of the report. “And so, they come to believe that those voices are representative of the people on both sides, when in fact, there’s quite a lot of complexity and nuance that gets missed.” These …

China’s decision last week to stop issuing permits for independent tourists to Taiwan applies new economic pressure to their already strained relations, and analysts see three underlying reasons behind Beijing’s move.   Beijing’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism cited the “current mainland China-Taiwan relations” as cause to stop permitting indie travelers after about a decade. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory rather than a state, but Taiwan prefers at least today’s level autonomy over the Chinese goal of unification. That schism has caused the two sides to chafe for 70 years. Here are three reasons China cut off travel permits: Taiwan’s president opposes China despite earlier pressure to get along Suspending the travel permits lets China remind Taiwan of its economic clout, some analysts say. The permit shutdown ends a process that generated on average more than 82,000 arrivals per month last year, which boosted the island’s service economy. Since 2016, China has flown military aircraft near Taiwan and persuaded five Taiwanese diplomatic allies to switch their allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. The Communist leadership hopes to pressure Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s government to bargain with China as her predecessor did — on the condition that acknowledges both sides are considered part of the same country. Despite the military and diplomatic pressure, the government in Taipei openly opposes rule by China. Tsai in January condemned the “one country, two systems” idea that Chinese President Xi Jinping had proposed then as a way to rule Taiwan. China is …

Colombia will grant citizenship to at least 24,000 children born to Venezuelan parents and at risk of statelessness. President Ivan Duque announced Monday that in a gesture of solidarity his government will begin recognizing those born in Colombia as citizens. Colombian law does not offer birthright citizenship to children whose parents are not legal migrants. Many of the 1.4 million Venezuelans now in Colombia entered illegally, meaning their children born in the neighboring Andean country didn’t qualify. Children born to Venezuelan parents abroad are entitled to Venezuelan citizenship but many have been unable to access that right because of severed diplomatic ties with Colombia. Colombia has received more Venezuelan migrants than any other nation form an unprecedented exodus.   The new measure is expected to remain in place for two years.   …

Downcast and sitting in a wheelchair as his historic trial began Monday in Argentina, the Rev. Nicola Corradi didn’t look like the man former students at an institute for the deaf say was the force behind years of “indescribable” torment through alleged sexual abuse. The 83-year-old Italian priest, along with the Rev. Horacio Corbacho, 59, and Armando Gomez, 63, are being tried for 28 cases of alleged abuse against ex-students at the Antonio Provolo Institute for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children in Mendoza province. They face prison sentences of up to 20 years in some cases, up to 50 years in others. The alleged abuse took place between 2004 and 2016, and the case gained world attention when it emerged that Corradi had faced similar accusations at the Antonio Provolo institute in Verona, Italy, and Pope Francis had been notified the Italian priest was running a similar center in Argentina. Corradi has pleaded not guilty to the sexual abuse charges, while Corbacho and Gomez — both Argentines — have not entered pleas. The trial is expected to last more than a month. As the three accused — Corbacho and Gomez in handcuffs — were led down a long corridor in Mendoza’s Palace of Justice Monday to a court where three judges awaited them, alleged victims and their relatives protested outside, with one sign saying “With Our Hands And Our Voices We Break The Silence,” a reference to sign language. “I am super-nervous, anxious and I hope for justice; that this …

France and Germany on Sunday condemned a Russian police crackdown on a banned opposition rally that saw hundreds detained, with Paris criticizing an “excessive use of force” after a second weekend of protests over the exclusion of opposition candidates from local Moscow polls next month. Berlin said the police action on Saturday “violated” Russia’s international obligations and undermines the right to fair elections in the country. The arrests on Saturday were “out of all proportion to the peaceful nature of the protests against the exclusion of independent candidates” from city elections in Moscow, the German government said. Crowds had walked along the capital’s central boulevard in a protest “stroll” over the refusal by officials to let opposition candidates run in September polls for city parliament seats — a local issue that has turned into a political crisis. Police say 1,500 people took part in the demonstration. AFP observed dozens of arrests along the route, as police formed human chains and grabbed people indiscriminately. Sobol detained again An ally of detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Lyubov Sobol, who is currently three weeks into a hunger strike after being barred from taking part in the election, was dragged from a taxi and detained as she set off for the rally. FILE – Russian opposition candidate and lawyer at the Foundation for Fighting Corruption Lyubov Sobol, center, and others stand in front of a police line during a protest in Moscow, Russia, July 14, 2019. Hours later she was taken to court where …

VOA’s Ibrahim Rahimi contributed to this report from Paktia, Afghanistan. A mini-bus carrying the employees of a private television station in Afghanistan has been struck by a magnetic bomb pasted to the vehicle, killing two people and injuring three others, all civilians, Afghan officials said Sunday. Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs said Sunday that a bomb was placed inside the vehicle carrying the employees of Khorshid TV, a privately-owned TV station that is headquartered in the capital, Kabul. According to officials, two people have been killed in the attack including the driver of the vehicle and a civilian passing by. Three others were wounded, two are employees of Khorshid TV and the third person is a civilian who was near the vehicle. No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but this is not the first time that journalists have been targeted in the country by militant groups. Incident follows reporter’s killing Last month, unknown armed assailants killed a reporter for a local radio station in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province. Nader Shah Sahibzada, a reporter for Voice of Gardiz local radio, went missing in July and authorities found his body a day later near his home in the capital city, Gardiz. Nader Shah Sahibzada, a reporter for Voice of Gardiz local radio in Paktia province, in seen in an undated social media photo. Initial autopsy reports suggest that Sahibzada had been severely tortured and stabbed to death. No group claimed responsibility for Sahibzada’s …

After two mass shootings in a span of 13 hours, there have now been more than 250 such events this year in which at least four people were shot or killed, besides the shooter. Officials in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, report 29 fatalities and at least 50 injured from shootings this weekend in those cities.  Republican and Democrat politicians shared their reactions to the massacres. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …

Turkey will carry out a military operation in a Kurdish-controlled area east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, its third offensive to dislodge Kurdish militia fighters close to its border.   Turkey had in the past warned of carrying out military operations east of the river, but put them on hold after agreeing with the United States to create a safe zone inside Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey that would be cleared of the Kurdish YPG militia.   But Ankara has accused Washington of stalling progress on setting up the safe zone and has demanded it sever its relations with the YPG. The group was Washington’s main ally on the ground in Syria during the battle against Islamic State, but Turkey sees it as a terrorist organization.   Erdogan said both Russia and the United States have been told of the planned operation, but did not say when it would begin. It would mark the third Turkish incursion into Syria in as many years.   “We entered Afrin, Jarablus, and Al-Bab. Now we will enter the east of the Euphrates,” Erdogan said on Sunday during a highway-opening ceremony.   Asked about Erdogan’s comments, a U.S. official told Reuters: “Bilateral discussions with Turkey continue on the possibility of a safe zone with U.S. and Turkish forces that addresses Turkey’s legitimate security concerns in northern Syria.”   Overnight, three Turkish-backed Syrian rebel fighters were killed during clashes with the YPG, state-owned Anadolu Agency reported on …

Updated Aug. 4, 7:00PM BRIDGEWATER, NEW JERSEY — As the nation reeled from two mass shootings in less than a day, President Donald Trump spent the first hours after the tragedies out of sight at his New Jersey golf course, sending out tweets of support awkwardly mixed in with those promoting a celebrity fight and attacking his political foes. Americans did not get a glimpse of the president in the immediate aftermath of a shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed at least 20 people and, hours later, one in Dayton, Ohio, that claimed at least nine lives. Not until Trump and the first lady prepared to fly back to Washington in the late afternoon Sunday did he appear before cameras. “Hate has no place in our country, and we’re going to take care of it,” Trump declared before boarding Air Force One. While connecting “hate” and mental illness to the shootings, Trump made no direct mention of gun laws, a factor brought up by Democratic officials and those seeking their party’s nomination to challenge Trump’s reelection next year. He also ignored questions about the anti-immigration language in a manifesto written by the El Paso shooter that mirrors some of his own. Trump tried to assure Americans he was dealing with the problem and defended his administration in light of criticism following the latest in a string of mass shootings. “We have done much more than most administrations,” he said, without elaboration. “We have done actually a lot. But perhaps …

A daredevil French inventor succeeded Sunday in his second attempt to cross the English Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard, taking off from the northern French coast amid a crowd of onlookers. Franky Zapata, 40, has to swap out his backpack full of kerosene by landing on a boat about halfway through the expected 20-minute trip toward St. Margaret’s Bay in Dover, on England’s southern coast. Zapata failed to pull off the tricky refueling maneuver during the first attempt on his Flyboard July 25, hitting the platform and tumbling into the waters of the busy shipping lane. He hopes to make the 35-kilometer (22-mile) crossing at an average speed of 140 kilometers an hour (87 mph) and at a height of 15-20 meters (50-65 feet) above the water. This time the refueling boat will be bigger and have a larger landing area, and French navy vessels in the area will again be keeping an eye out in case of trouble.  …