Hagia Sophia: Turkey to rule on turning site into mosque - BBC News

Turkey's Council of State is due to decide if the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul can be converted into a mosque.

Built in the Sixth Century on the orders of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, it was the world's largest cathedral for nearly 1,000 years.

The Unesco World Heritage site was turned into a mosque when the Ottoman Empire captured the city in 1453, but became a museum in the 1930s.

It may become a mosque again if the court approves the move on Thursday.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the change during an election rally last year.

Islamists in Turkey have long called for it to be converted, but secular opposition members have opposed the move. The proposal has prompted international criticism, from religious and political leaders worldwide.

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The head of the Eastern Orthodox Church has opposed the move, as has Greece - home to many millions of Orthodox followers.

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni has accused Turkey of reviving "fanatical nationalist and religious sentiment", insisting no change to a Unesco World Heritage site can take place without being approved by the body's own intergovernmental committee.

Unesco deputy director Ernesto Ottone Ramirez agreed that wider approval was needed, in an interview with Greek newspaper Ta Nea.

The UN body had written to Turkey about the proposal, but received no reply, he said.

What's the history?

The iconic, domed building sits in Istanbul's Fatih district, on the west bank of the Bosporus.

Justinian I ordered the massive construction built in 532, when the city - then known as Constantinople - was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire. Engineers brought materials from across the Mediterranean to build the colossal cathedral.

On completion in 537 it became the seat of the Orthodox patriarch of the capital. Byzantine imperial ceremonies such as coronations took place at the building.

The Hagia Sophia served as the home of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly 900 years, barring a brief period in the 13th Century when it was a Catholic cathedral under control of European invaders who ransacked and occupied Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

But in 1453, the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople and renamed the city Istanbul, finishing off the Byzantine Empire once and for all.

On entering the Hagia Sophia, Mehmed II insisted it be renovated and converted into a mosque. He attended the first Friday prayers in the building, days after it was ransacked by invading forces.

Ottoman architects removed or plastered over Orthodox symbols inside and added spires and minarets to the structure. Until the completion of Istanbul's Blue Mosque in 1616 the Hagia Sophia was the main mosque in the city, and its architecture inspired builders of the Blue Mosque and several others around the city and the world.

After the end of World War I in 1918, the Ottoman Empire was defeated and divided by the victorious Allies. Nationalist forces, however, rose up and created modern-day Turkey from the ashes of that empire.

The founder of Turkey and the secular republic's first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ordered the Hagia Sophia to be turned into a museum. Since reopening to the public in 1935 it has become one of Turkey's most visited tourist attractions.

Why does it matter?

Because of its 1,500-year history, the Hagia Sophia holds immense religious, spiritual and political significance for groups inside and outside Turkey.

Islamist groups and devout Muslims demand the building be turned back into a mosque, and have staged protests outside it, against a 1934 law that bars religious services at the site.

President Erdogan has echoed those calls. In a campaign speech ahead of local elections last year he said it had been a "very big mistake" to turn the Hagia Sophia into a museum, and he has since reportedly asked aides to examine how to convert the building.

The head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, known as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, is still based in Istanbul. Patriarch Bartholomew I warned on Tuesday that the conversion of the building would "disappoint millions of Christians" and fracture two worlds.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that any change in the Hagia Sophia's status would diminish its ability to "serve humanity as a much-needed bridge between those of differing faith traditions and cultures".

Last week US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback called on Turkey to leave the building as it was.

Skip Twitter post by @IRF_Ambassador

The Hagia Sophia holds enormous spiritual & cultural significance to billions of believers of different faiths around the world. We call on the Govt of #Turkey to maintain it as a @UNESCO World Heritage site & to maintain accessibility to all in its current status as a museum.

— Ambassador Sam Brownback (@IRF_Ambassador) June 25, 2020

End of Twitter post by @IRF_Ambassador

But Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu insisted that Athens had no say in the decision as the building was on Turkish territory.

"What we do in our country and with our property is up to us," he reportedly told Turkish broadcaster 24 TV.

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Jonathan Irons, Helped by W.N.B.A. Star Maya Moore, Freed From Prison - The New York Times

Jonathan Irons, whose bid for freedom from a 50-year prison sentence was embraced and pushed by the W.N.B.A. star Maya Moore, walked out of a Missouri penitentiary on Wednesday, nearly four months after a judge overturned his conviction on charges of burglary and assault.

Irons, 40, an African-American man convicted at age 18, was met by Moore, her family, and other supporters who hugged him and cheered outside the Jefferson City Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison off a countryside thruway called No More Victims Road. At one point, Moore sunk to her knees as if in prayerful astonishment.

“I feel like I can live life now,” Irons said. “I’m free, I’m blessed, I just want to live my life worthy of God’s help and influence.” He added: “I thank everybody who supported me — Maya and her family.”

Then Irons took his first steps into liberty as an adult.

It was the culmination of a yearslong effort by his supporters to win his freedom, a campaign that factored in a decision by Moore last year to forego playing in the W.N.B.A. at the peak of her success.

In March, a Missouri judge, Daniel Green, vacated Irons’s 1998 conviction in what police said was a burglary and shooting at the home of Stanley Stotler, then 38, a white homeowner who lived alone in O’Fallon, a roughly 45-minute drive from downtown St. Louis. Both Stotler and his assailant were armed, and Stotler was shot twice.

Irons has insisted that he was not there and had been misidentified.

After hearing testimony and a profession of innocence from Irons, who was shackled in the courtroom, Green cited a series of problems with the way the case had been investigated and tried. He focused on a fingerprint report that had not been turned over to Irons’s defense team. The print, found inside a door that would have been used to leave the house, belonged to neither Irons nor Stotler.

Irons’s lawyers said the fingerprint would have supported their contention that someone else had committed the crime. Green agreed that the print would have given Irons’s defense team “unassailable forensic evidence” to support his plea of innocence.

Jonathan Irons, who was serving a 50-year sentence for a conviction that was ultimately overturned, was released from a Missouri penitentiary on Wednesday. His bid for freedom was pushed by the W.N.B.A. star Maya Moore.Credit...Nina Robinson for The New York Times

The case against Irons, Green wrote, was “very weak and circumstantial at best.”

In the three and a half months following Green’s overturning of the conviction, lawyers for Attorney General Eric Schmitt of Missouri launched a pair of failed appeals, then were turned away by the state Supreme Court, which left the matter in the hands of Tim Lohmar, the lead prosecutor in St. Charles County, where the crime occurred. He had to decide whether to retry the case.

On Wednesday afternoon, Lohmar declined a retrial.

Moore’s family met Irons through prison ministry. She and Irons were introduced in 2007, during a penitentiary visit shortly before her freshman year at the University of Connecticut, where she became one of the most heralded women’s players in collegiate history. Moore went on to win four W.N.B.A. championships and a league Most Valuable Player Award for the Minnesota Lynx, but she and Irons formed a close, siblinglike bond.

Maya Moore, a star with the Minnesota Lynx of the W.N.B.A., stepped away from basketball last year in part to help Irons with his appeal.Credit...Nina Robinson for The New York Times

She did not talk publicly about their friendship until 2016, when she began advocating for changes in law enforcement and the legal system. Following a series of police shootings of unarmed Black men — including the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., near where Irons grew up — and the killing of five Dallas officers by a sniper during a protest of police brutality, Moore helped lead the Lynx in one of the first athlete protests for the Black Lives Matter movement and racial justice.

Moore, now 31, became a strong voice for prosecutorial changes. In early 2019, she stunned the sports world by announcing she would take a timeout from basketball, in part so she could devote more time and energy to helping Irons mount what they thought would be his final appeal. She used her fame to raise awareness and helped fund the hiring of Kent Gipson, a highly regarded defense attorney based in Kansas City, Mo., to handle Irons’s case.

Court records show that Stotler, the victim of the crime, was shot in the right arm and right temple. Weeks later, he was unable to pick out the assailant from among a lineup of six photos. Instructed by a police officer to give his best guess, Stotler pointed to a picture of Irons, which was slightly larger than the others, and to another photo of a different African-American man.

Stotler later identified Irons as the perpetrator while Irons sat in court — once while Irons was dressed in prison garb and another time while the teenager sat next to his defense lawyer. But there was no corroborating witness to the crime, nor were any fingerprints, DNA or blood evidence implicating Irons presented in court.

Prosecutors said Irons, who was 16 at the time the crime took place, admitted to a police officer that he had broken into Stotler’s home, a claim that Irons steadfastly denied. The officer who interrogated him did so alone and did not make a video or audio recording of the conversation. Asked for his interview notes, the officer said he had thrown them away.

Despite his youth, Irons was tried as an adult. On the advice of his public defender, he did not testify. In a county with few minority residents, he was convicted by an all-white jury and given a sentence that made him ineligible for parole until he was about 60 years old.

Throughout his time in prison, Irons — a religious man who educated himself behind bars and earned commendations from prison administration — said he would never agree to parole, because it would require him to admit guilt when he had done nothing wrong.

Moore, an evangelical Christian who has spent much of the last year ministering in Atlanta and connecting with her church and family, continues to say she has no plans to return to basketball anytime soon. In January, she announced she was extending her hiatus for a second year, partly to continue helping Irons. That decision meant she would miss not only a second W.N.B.A. season, now set to start in late July after being postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, but a chance to win a third straight gold medal in this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, which were moved to 2021.

During a recent telephone interview from prison, Irons said he initially planned to live with Moore’s godparents in Atlanta, across the street from her home. Moore’s godfather, Reggie Williams, had worked in his spare time to investigate Irons’s case and uncovered the key fingerprint evidence.

“I hope to be an agent of positive change,” Irons said in the interview. “I want to encourage and inspire people and share my story with anyone who will listen. I want to be an advocate, part of the conversation going forward, for justice and police reform.”

Asked about Stotler, Irons did not hesitate.

“He was a victim twice,” Irons said. “A victim once by the person who burglarized his home and assaulted him. And he was a victim of the police who manipulated him into identifying me.”

“I would extend my hand in peace to him. I want to dialogue with him. If he wanted to go for dinner, I would start there.”

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6 FC Dallas players test positive for coronavirus as team prepares for tournament - CNN

Two of the players tested positive for Covid-19 after the team was tested Saturday when they arrived in Orlando, Florida. Four others tested positive in the past two days, MLS said in a statement on Wednesday.

The players, who have not been identified, are in self-isolation at the team's designed hotel in the Walt Disney World Resort, which is hosting the tournament set to begin on July 8.

The announcement comes as major league sports in the US begin executing their plans to play in the midst of the pandemic while the number of coronavirus cases across the country keep increasing.

MLS created a series of safety protocols for its shortened season in hopes to avoid a coronavirus outbreak among the teams. Those measures include regular testing, social distancing and the use of face masks.

A total of 392 people including players, coaches and staff members have been tested since the teams began arriving in Florida, and the FC Dallas players are the only people who have tested positive for Covid-19, MLS said.

"While in isolation, the individuals are in daily communication with and receive remote care from a healthcare provider, including monitoring of symptoms and regular follow-up testing," the league said.

The rest of the FC Dallas delegation are currently "quarantining in their hotel rooms pending the results" of additional Covid-19 tests. The team has not been in contact with other teams since they arrived in Florida, MLS said.

The team said in a statement that the players, coaches and staff tested negative for the virus before they traveled to Florida.

It's unclear how the diagnoses will impact the team's future in the tournament. FC Dallas has its first match scheduled for July 9 against Vancouver.

Several MLS players from multiple teams have tested positive since March. In the weeks before traveling to Florida and after resuming training, a total of 18 players and six staff members tested positive, MLS has said.

MLS is resuming play later this month after the National Women's Soccer League began playing in late June. The NBA will resume its season on July 30 with 22 teams traveling to play at Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.

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U.S. House Passes China-Sanctions Bill on Hong Kong Law - Bloomberg Politics

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1. U.S. House Passes China-Sanctions Bill on Hong Kong Law  Bloomberg Politics
2. Hundreds arrested on first day of Hong Kong national security law  CNN
3. Millions in Hong Kong to gain rights to live and work in UK - BBC News  BBC News
4. How China Scammed Hong Kong  The New York Times
5. Andrew McCarthy: China swallows Hong Kong  Fox News
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Referendum In Russia Passes, Allowing Putin To Remain President Until 2036 - NPR

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Russian President Vladimir Putin shows his passport to a member of an election commission as he arrives to take part in voting at a polling station in Moscow on Wednesday. Alexei Druzhinin/AP hide caption

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Alexei Druzhinin/AP

Russian voters have overwhelmingly backed a referendum on constitutional changes that include a provision allowing President Vladimir Putin — who has already served for some two decades — to remain in power until 2036.

With nearly all of the ballots counted, the tally for the voting that has taken place over a full week, showed a 78% "yes" vote, according to Russia's Central Election Commission. The commission estimated the turnout was 65% of eligible voters.

The opposition accused the government of rigging the vote.

Russia's constitution had required Putin to step down after his current six-year term expires in 2024.

The amendments to the constitution up for the referendum vote had been passed weeks ago by Russia's parliament, but Putin had insisted that they be approved by voters to give the changes legitimacy.

The referendum had originally been scheduled for April 22, but was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia is among the countries hardest-hit by the virus.

In addition to a reset of presidential terms allowing him to run twice more, the referendum includes some 200 other amendments, including guaranteed minimum pensions, a ban on same-sex marriage and an affirmation of the Russian people's belief in God.

It also includes changes designed to strengthen the country's State Council and a provision banning the relinquishing of any Russian territory — a move aimed at solidifying Moscow's hold on Crimea, which had been under Ukraine's control until it was annexed by Russia in 2014.

Putin was photographed voting at the Royal Academy of Sciences, where he was handed a ballot by a poll worker clad in mask and gloves as an apparent precaution against coronavirus infection. Putin himself was not wearing any protective gear.

In January, Putin's Cabinet, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, abruptly resigned, in a move aimed at easing the constitutional changes.

Putin, who is currently 67, could serve well into his 80s.

The Russian leader previously sidestepped the two-term limit by becoming prime minister for a term, while Medvedev stepped into the presidency. Even so, Putin was widely seen as maintaining near complete control over the presidency during his brief absence from the post.

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Bobby Bonilla 'took the Mets to the woodshed' with his lucrative 25-year deal - CNBC

Bobby Bonilla of the New York Mets looks on before a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on May 15, 1999 at Shea Stadium in New York.

Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

Bobby Bonilla, who retired as a baseball player in 2001, hasn't played for the New York Mets since 1999.

Yet Bonilla is among the highest-paid position players on the Mets' payroll this year.  

The team paid the 57-year-old $1,193,248.20 on Wednesday — as it has each year over the past decade and will continue doing through 2035.

His payday, July 1, is known widely as "Bobby Bonilla Day."

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That good fortune is courtesy of a contract Bonilla signed with the franchise in the early 2000s, regarded as one of the most legendary deals in sports history.

For the Mets, it's known as one of the worst — and one that involves Bernie Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme that blew up during the 2008 financial crisis.

"I think he got the greatest deal in the whole world," Jeffrey Levine, the director of advanced planning at Buckingham Wealth Partners, said of Bonilla. "He absolutely took the Mets to the woodshed."

In 2000, the Mets agreed to buy out Bonilla's remaining $5.9 million contract.

Instead of paying that cash up-front, the team agreed to give Bonilla $1.19 million per year for 25 years. The payments were deferred, starting in 2011. His annual pay includes a guaranteed 8% interest rate.

Bonilla's career didn't end with the Mets. After being released in 2000, he played ball for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2001. Bonilla was among the highest-paid players in Major League Baseball when he initially signed with the Mets in the early '90s.  

Bonilla's deal is extremely lucrative for two reasons, according to Levine, who is a a certified financial planner and CPA.

For one, the Mets are paying Bonilla nearly $29.8 million, which is the sum of all his annual payments.

That's more than double the $12.7 million value Bonilla's contract would have had at the time he started getting paid in 2011, according to Levine's calculations.

"If you could get an 8% guaranteed return on your money, would you do it? The answer should be yes."

— Jeffrey Levine, director of advanced planning at Buckingham Wealth Partners

Further, an 8% guaranteed interest rate is especially generous.

It's the equivalent of an 8% return on an investment every year, and without the volatility or risk present in the stock market.

Since the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to near zero during the Great Recession, savers can't get a comparable return on traditionally safe investments like cash or bonds.

"If you could get an 8% guaranteed return on your money, would you do it? The answer should be yes. It is exceedingly difficult," Levine said.

That return is similar to Social Security, regarded by financial advisors and money managers as one of the best deals in town. The system pays retirees an extra 8% each year that they wait to claim benefits, up to age 70.

But Bonilla's deal is better yet, Levine said, since his heirs would also continue getting paid each year if he were to pass away.

For context, if the Mets paid a lower interest rate — 3%, for example — the team would have paid Bonilla about $455,000 each year (instead of $1.2 million), for a total value of about $11.4 million (instead of $29.8 million), Levine said.

Of course, the Mets didn't necessarily completely lose out on the deal. For one, they were able to free up cash by deferring pay, according to some observers.

But the team did fall victim to a somewhat risky form of investment arbitrage involving Bernie Madoff.

Mets owners believed they would easily be able to finance an 8% interest rate, since they were supposedly getting a higher return on an investment they'd made with Madoff.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be a house of cards. Madoff ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history and is currently serving a 150-year sentence.

Money lessons

The Bonilla deal has some money lessons for the average person.

For one, it shows the importance of taking the long view of one's savings and investment portfolio, Levine said.

Bonilla's deal shows how Americans can benefit in the long term by tempering a short-term impulse like abandoning the stock market if there's a sudden drop.

Further, it shows the need to be cautious about debt.

Loans and credit-card debt can help people buy things they otherwise couldn't afford. A mortgage, for example, allows people to buy a house.

But the Mets deal, which is equivalent to taking on a 35-year mortgage at an 8% interest rate, demonstrates how bill payments can quickly start to build when debt carries a higher interest rate, Levine said.

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Coronavirus era puts Aaron Boone's Yankees management style to test - New York Post

If his former Reds teammate Sean Casey hadn’t beaten him to the nickname, Aaron Boone could go by “The Mayor.”

To watch Boone traverse the Yankees’ clubhouse is to witness an effortless ballet of small talk, eye contact, handshakes and shoulder pats, be they with his players, his coaches, his superiors or media members. See it once and you’ll understand why the Yankees viewed him as the perfect successor to the more intense Joe Girardi in the manager’s office.

As Boone began to welcome his players to Yankee Stadium for spring training 2.0 on Wednesday, with the club’s first full workout set for Saturday, he acknowledged he’ll need to alter his impressive man-of-the-people routine in light of strict rules intended to manage the coronavirus. What does the mayor do when Main Street gets shut down? What happens when the king of connectivity faces a plethora of connecting restrictions?

“I’ve definitely thought about them and honestly don’t quite know exactly what to expect,” Boone said on a conference call. “… We’ll get creative as we have to. I know in the early days here in spring training, obviously being at Yankee Stadium, we’ll try to take advantage of the entire facility, the entire stadium, take advantage of some outdoor situations.

“… The reality is on the first day, when I address the team, it’s probably going to be several different times. I’m probably going to have to do it three or four different times where I’m addressing different groups and that’s OK. That’s part of what we’ve got to do to get our message across.”

Aaron BooneN.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg

That message, Boone made clear: “We want to be champions.” You know that 2020 easily (probably?) could go down as a year without champions in any sport, so prevalent and dangerous is COVID-19 and, consequently, so long-reaching are its tentacles as MLB attempts a restart.

MLB’s operations manual for life in the coronavirus era includes this passage: “To the extent possible, meetings should be conducted virtually or, if in-person meetings are necessary, Clubs should make efforts to hold in-person meetings outdoors with participants sitting apart from one another and wearing face-coverings to the extent possible.”

Those correct limits decrease the likelihood of us someday reporting on a legendary clubhouse meeting that resets the team’s course toward a parade. They also beg for the YES Network to record Boone’s “three or four” opening addresses and air them at season’s end so we can dissect the nuances. By his fourth rendering, will he look as exhausted as Moe on “The Simpsons” when he must repeatedly perform his “million dollar birthday fries” shtick to eager youngsters?

Throw in dugout social distancing and the stresses attached to the disease, and Boone’s greatest strength (arguably) on the job will be challenged. The upside, arguably, is that his skill set should equip him to adjust on the fly.

Referring to the absence of fans at the ballpark as well as the myriad medical protocols, Boone said, “There’s an edge to be gained there for the teams that handle that the best, and hopefully we’ll do a good job of winning that edge on a daily basis.”

Part of that, the manager acknowledged, will be “constantly holding each other accountable as we navigate these waters.” Translation: No extracurricular activity on the road, especially Florida, and the players must do some self-policing and peer pressuring on that front. Moreover, Boone said, “There’s going to be things that we’re probably not even accounting for yet at this point.”

So many headaches for the Yankees’ mayor to treat, all with a knowing smile.

“We know there’ll be bumps along the way and who knows where it ends up?” Boone said. “My job and my focus is on the next few days. Really starting to lay that foundation and try and get our guys in the best possible position to go out and be successful.”

Some new materials will be required to construct that foundation, that culture with which Boone has become synonymous. If the season actually occurs, it’ll be fun to watch Boone figure out solutions, like a spiritual MacGyver, amidst this most unusual episode of MLB.

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