Mourinho Hails McTominay After Leaving Out Pogba For Sevilla Draw

Jose Mourinho described Scott McTominay as “fantastic” in response to his decision to select the young midfielder ahead of Paul Pogba for Wednesday’s Champions League last 16, first-leg draw with Sevilla.

Pogba had been left out of the starting line-up for the goalless draw with Mourinho apparently unhappy after the French star withdrew from last weekend’s FA Cup win at Huddersfield Town citing illness.

That followed criticism from Mourinho of Pogba’s recent performances, with the Portuguese making a statement by selecting McTominay, 21, alongside Ander Herrera and Nemanja Matic in midfield.

Mourinho later complained that there had been too much focus on Pogba before and after the match, and not enough on a player making his second Champions League start.

“In my pre-match interview I had four questions and three were about Paul, and Paul was not even playing. That’s a bit strange,” he said.

“If I was one of you (journalists), I would ask if the Manchester United manager agrees that Scott McTominay had a fantastic performance, and my answer would be that yes, he had a fantastic performance.

“He looked a senior player, a player with great maturity. Scott probably looked like a man with dozens and dozens of matches in the Champions League when this is only the second (start).”

Pogba played most of the game anyway, being sent on after just 17 minutes when injury forced Herrera off.

The French star played his part in a typically cautious, backs-to-the-wall away European performance from Mourinho’s side. But, tellingly, he later refused to stop for journalists in the mixed zone of the Sanchez Pizjuan.

“Paul made a big effort to try to give the team what I asked of them,” insisted Mourinho.

“He gave us stability. For a match away to Sevilla, we had a good percentage of the ball, and I think Paul had responsibility for that.”

– Doctors blamed for Herrera injury –

The injury to Herrera came after the Spaniard had been passed fit to return from a hamstring injury that had kept him out of United’s previous three games.

He could now face another untimely spell on the sidelines, with United’s programme including Premier League games against Chelsea and Liverpool before the Sevilla second leg on March 13.

“The medical department gave him fully fit. On the pitch he showed the intensity that is only possible if you are fully fit,” Mourinho said.

“Then it was a back-heel and a back-heel creates a contraction in the muscular area where he had the biggest problem, and now we have proof that he was not 100 percent fit.”

Mourinho said the scoreline “reflected what the game was”, despite the Old Trafford side managing just one shot on target all evening.

Sevilla created almost all of the chances, but could not find a way past an inspired David de Gea, who made two stunning saves from Steven N’Zonzi and Luis Muriel late in the first half.

“Even with a couple of mistakes the team defended well,” Mourinho said. “When we made the mistakes David was obviously there and that is the reason why he is what he is.”

United are hoping to reach the quarter-finals for the first time since 2014, while Sevilla have never made it past the last 16 of the Champions League in three attempts in the last decade.

Their coach Vincenzo Montella believes his side have a good chance of progressing, despite struggling recently in big matches away from home.

“I think this Sevilla have to always play to score and try to be superior to our opponents,” said the Italian.

“It is not always possible but that is what we have to do, and play to win.”

Trump's right: Obama was asleep at the switch on Russia

"(Russia) is without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe. They fight for every cause for the world's worst actors. The idea that he (Obama) has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed," Romney told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on March 26 of that election year, referring to President Barack Obama being caught on a hot mic telling then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that after the election the United States would have more "flexibility," so long as Obama was re-elected.

Obama would use Romney's words later as a bludgeoning tool in a debate, mocking him for suggesting that Russia posed a threat to our national security.

"When you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. Not al Qaeda. You said Russia," Obama condescended. "And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War's been over for 20 years."

His riff indicated more interest in delivering a memorized debate quip than in taking seriously the threat Vladimir Putin posed to America.

Of course, Romney was right. Based on everything we know about Russia's activities in the 2016 election, there is no doubt they meddled. There is doubt about active collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign, and about whether Putin's efforts changed the election outcome.

But on Putin's attempt to exploit the political and cultural divisions dividing Americans, there is no question. You have to wonder if Putin launched his operation because he knew that Obama's presidency was so divisive.

In fact, just after the 2016 election, as Obama was leaving office, just 27% of Americans who responded in a survey conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research saw America as more united as a result of Obama's presidency, versus 44% who said it was more divided.

Obama divided us politically. And Putin, fully aware of Obama's naiveté on Russia's geopolitical intentions, took advantage of what Obama was doing to our national unity.

After special counsel Robert Mueller rolled out his indictments of 13 Russians involved in election meddling last week, Trump -- among his other, more colorful tweets -- arrived at the right question: "Obama was President up to, and beyond, the 2016 Election. So why didn't he do something about Russian meddling?"

The reason is right in front of our face. Obama simply didn't take Russia seriously. What he said to Romney at the debate reflected exactly how he viewed the Russian threat; it will be remembered as one of the greatest presidential foreign policy failures in American history.

Obama instead spent his time on other foreign policy items designed around public relations more than national security -- opening up relations with Cuba, cutting a disastrously bad deal with Iran and commuting the sentence of the traitor Chelsea Manning.

Obama was the President when Russia decided to meddle and hack an American presidential election, and he ought to get the blame for pursuing vanity projects rather than detecting and protecting America from what was an act of war by a hostile foreign power.

National security aside, if I were Hillary Clinton or any of her supporters, I would be irate even now at Obama's failure to inform the American people fully about the Russian intrusion. Yes, I understand Obama's concerns about appearing to put a thumb on the scale. But no attack on our democracy should go unreported to the people, and besides -- everyone already knew Obama was for Clinton anyway. Election or not, the commander in chief failed to act when confronted with clear evidence of foreign interference.

Like so many other issues left to him, this is now Trump's mess to clean up. And I hope he does. He must forcefully acknowledge Russian meddling (which can easily be done without sacrificing his own legitimacy), and he must launch a presidentially appointed task force of military leaders, homeland security officials, intelligence officials, tech industry experts, election administrators and experienced campaign operatives charged with detecting and stopping Russian interference in 2018 and 2020.

I'd drag them to the Oval Office, swear them in and tell them not to come out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building until we have a handle on stopping this foreign aggression. The optics of this would reassure the American people that a new commander in chief is not going to let Obama's failures stand when it comes to Russia.

Trump's foreign policy legacy will be measured against Obama's. That's a low bar to jump, and I hope the President and his team will do all that is necessary to protect America from future intrusions on our democracy, as his predecessor's failure is looking worse by the day.

There are no longer any words to describe Syria's horror

The devastation wrought in Eastern Ghouta by a relentless bombardment by the Syrian regime has forced doctors to use expired drugs and scramble for water as the number of dead reached 300 in three days, medics and activists said.

At least 260 people were killed and 500 injured in the rebel held-enclave between Monday and Tuesday evening, the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), said. Activists with the Damascus Media Center activist group said another 45 deaths had been reported on Wednesday.

The intensified bombardment of Eastern Ghouta, an area outside Damascus that has been besieged by the regime of Bashar al-Assad for years, drew international condemnation. Amnesty International said "flagrant war crimes" were being committed on an "epic scale" there, and the UN children's agency UNICEF published a symbolic blank statement, saying in a footnote there were "no words" to describe the suffering of children.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it as "hell on Earth."

The onslaught has prompted warnings that the Assad regime, which is backed by the Russian military, is preparing to crush the rebel-held enclave.

In a statement condemning the attacks, the White House singled out Russia's support for the Syrian regime. "Assad and his deplorable regime must stop committing additional atrocities and must not be further abetted by backers in Moscow and Tehran," it said.

The Russian military conceded that conditions on the ground were a "critical humanitarian" situation but claimed talks to resolve the conflict had been "derailed."

Syria says it is targeting terrorist groups in the area and Moscow said "illegal armed formations" had ignored calls "to stop fighting and lay down their arms." It claimed they were preventing civilians from leaving the conflict zone.

400,000 trapped

Nearly 400,000 people are trapped in Eastern Ghouta, many of them in desperate need of humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations. Once described as the "breadbasket" for Damascus, Eastern Ghouta is the same area that was the target of an alleged chemical attack in 2013, which activists say killed about 1,400 people.

In recent days, families have retreated to makeshift underground shelters with limited food and water as they try to shelter from the intense bombardment.

SAMS

✔@sams_usa

Deliberate attacks on healthcare continue in East Ghouta. Over the past three days, 20 healthcare facilities have been attacked in #EastGhouta, with two of these facilities attacked on two separate occasions. #SaveGhouta #NotATarget

9:56 PM - Feb 21, 2018

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Options are increasingly limited for those injured as the bombs, rockets and shells rain down. Twenty medical facilities have been targeted since Monday, according to SAMS, some of them with crude barrel bombs. Of those facilities, four were completely destroyed and two have temporarily suspended their activities. SAMS lost three of its health workers in the strikes, it said.

hotos: Airstrikes in Eastern Ghouta

A woman and children run for cover after bombing in Hamouria on Monday, February 19.

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An injured child cries as he receives treatment at a makeshift hospital in Hamouria.

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A man carries an injured victim amid the rubble of buildings.

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A boy waits to receive medical treatment at a field hospital.

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He described a desperate situation where doctors were using expired drugs, including anesthetics, because they had no other option. Equipment in operating theaters and intensive care units is out of date and there are only about 105 doctors to care for all those trapped in Eastern Ghouta, he said.

Aslan, who was in his last year of high school when the civil war began nearly seven years ago, has been volunteering as a medical worker for the past six years.

Asked about basic services and goods, Aslan said: "Water and electricity that we used to get from the Syrian side have not seen it in seven years. If we are lucky, we get water from natural aquifers and other water wells. As for electricity, we depend on generators and fuel." These are now almost impossible to find, he added.

"These are the worst days of our lives in Ghouta," Eastern Ghouta hospital director and pediatrician Amani Ballour told CNN on Tuesday.

"We in Ghouta have been getting hit by airstrikes for more than five years and this is not new to us ... but we have never seen anything like this escalation."

A rescue worker carries a woman from the wreckage of buildings hit by an airstrike over Erbin in Eastern Ghouta on Tuesday.

Rebels fire into Damascus

Rebels have responded by firing into Damascus. Syrian state news agency SANA said two people were injured on Wednesday when armed groups fired two mortar shells on Bab al-Salam neighborhood in Old Damascus.

At least 13 people were killed and 77 others were wounded a day earlier when 114 rockets and mortar rounds landed on several neighborhoods in Damascus. The Syrian army responded to those attacks with "precise strikes," SANA said, destroying rocket launchers and fortified positions used by the armed groups.

Eastern Ghouta is meant to be one of the so-called "de-escalation zones" agreed to in a deal struck by Russia, Turkey and Iran last year. In theory, such zones, also referred to as nonconflict or safe zones, are meant to be areas where civilians can live without being targeted by any party in Syria's war.

Nonetheless, since November, hundreds of civilians have been killed or injured in airstrikes and shelling across the country, according to the United Nations.

A photo provided Wednesday by the White Helmets volunteer group shows the rescue of a young girl from a building damaged by airstrikes and shelling in Eastern Ghouta.

The International committee of the Red Cross called for "restraint and access to the wounded" in Eastern Ghouta.

"The fighting appears likely to cause much more suffering in the days and weeks ahead, and our teams need to be allowed to enter Eastern Ghouta to aid the wounded," said Marianne Gasser, head of the ICRC delegation in Syria.

There are not enough medical supplies to cope with the number of injured, the ICRC said, especially after reported hits on medical facilities.

"Wounded victims are dying only because they cannot be treated in time. In some areas of Ghouta, entire families have no safe place to go," Gasser said. "On the other side of the front line, people in Damascus are in constant fear that their children will be hit by falling mortars. This is madness and it has to stop. Civilians must not be targeted."

A UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoy arrived in Eastern Ghouta last Wednesday. It was the first convoy to enter the area since November, Reuters reported.

Syrian rescue workers carry an injured civilian on a stretcher from an area hit by a reported regime airstrike in the rebel-held town of Saqba, in Eastern Ghouta, on Tuesday.

UN chief urges halt to war

UN Secretary-General Guterres called for an immediate halt to hostilities in Eastern Ghouta.

"My appeal to all those involved Is for an immediate suspension of all war activities in Eastern Ghouta, allowing for humanitarian aid to reach all those in need," Guterres said, adding, "I believe Eastern Ghouta cannot wait. "

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tuesday that the United States was "deeply concerned" by worsening violence in Eastern Ghouta, which has targeted hospitals and civilian infrastructure.

Nauert criticized the Assad regime, as well as its backers in Moscow. Russia, she said, "must end its support for the Assad regime and its allies," and shares responsibility for the ongoing violence.

UK Prime Minster Theresa May said she was appalled by the escalation of airstrikes in Eastern Ghouta and concerned by reports of "ongoing deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructures."

Calling for the violence to cease, she said: "It's not just about the Syrian government, it's about the backers of the Syrian government as well, and we call on all their backers, including Russia, to ensure that this violence stops and that those people who are in need of help are given that help."

Asked by reporters about claims that Russia is partially to blame for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in Eastern Ghouta, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred any questions to the Russian Defense Ministry.

"These are unsubstantiated accusations. It is unclear what they are based on, no specific information was given, and this is how we assess such accusations [based on specific information]," Peskov said. "We do not agree with these accusations."

Mihir Garimella is making drones that go where humans cannot

When Mihir Garimella was in fifth grade, his parents would chide him for leaving his bedroom light on. Rather than just remember to turn off the light, he rigged a motion sensor to automate the switch.

A year later at his school orchestra, Garimella would get in trouble because he couldn't tune his violin. So he built a robot that listened to sound samples and tuned it for him.

The 18-year-old from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is an ordinary teenager with an extraordinary eye for integrating tech solutions into everyday life. A Google Science Fair winner in 2014, a TEDx speaker in 2015, he'd designed a low-cost concussion detection kit, created a math app which recognizes and solves handwritten problems, and co-authored a paper on brain tumor diagnosis via image processing algorithms -- all before leaving high school.

"I've always loved just building things," he told CNN. It's perhaps an understatement.

High-tech solutions from nature

Garimella is best known for his work on drones, for which he won the Google prize. His research has taken him into the field of biomimicry -- designing robotics modeled on the natural world. In Garimella's case, he's focused on the humble fruit fly, an unlikely source of inspiration.

"Four years ago my family went to India on vacation," he recalls. "When we got back we realized we'd left a bunch of bananas on the kitchen counter. By that point they were rotting, so our house was filled with fruit flies."

Try as he might, they'd always evade the fly swat. "I became curious about how these tiny organisms (with a) tiny brain, really bad eyesight, could possibly escape so effectively," he says.

Garimella studied the insect, and sent emails to eminent biologists. To his surprise, professors at Caltech and Carnegie Mellon University replied.

"Fruit flies have the fastest visual system on the planet -- they can see 10 times faster than humans can," Garimella says. "Their eyes are equivalent to a 25x25 pixel camera, so they basically can't see any detail at all. But as a result, they can process whatever information they do see very quickly."

The teenager began wondering if this low-data approach could be applied to drones, traditionally difficult to maneuver in tight spaces and ill-adept in detecting and avoiding danger.

His tiny FlyBot prototype fitted in the palm of a hand and acted like a fruit fly, outmaneuvering hazards using a single camera and Garimella's own algorithm to 3D-map its environment. The prizes flowed in, but for the student, there was more work to be done.

Going where humans dare not

"The next thing I looked at was carrying out missions in these spaces -- search and rescue, finding the source of a fire or chemical leak," he says. Finding positive uses for drones has been a hot topic in recent years, spurring on stories about medical drops in Rwanda and Amazon deliveries and competitions like Drones For Good in the UAE.

Often these drones take different forms, varying in size. Garimella has been working to design a single drone that can perform multiple functions.

"The idea is that you take (my) drone, plug in different sensors based on whatever task you're trying to accomplish, and the drone would use those sensors to carry out a mission," he says. "So in a search and rescue situation after an earthquake, you could plug in a thermal camera and the drone would use that to find people who are trapped.

"If you're inspecting a nuclear power plant you could plug in radiation sensors and the drone could use that to pinpoint hot spots of radiation, find tanks that are going to leak."

He lists many more potential uses, including industrial inspection. The idea is that with an adaptive, autonomous drone, these robots can spot potential dangers before they ever happen.

"I'm trying to keep these drones under the $1,000 price range," he adds, saying that after four years of work, he hopes to have a product on the market in the next "one-to-two years."

As a freshman studying computer science at Stanford University he's now balancing studies while launching his own company.

"My dream is to build something that can improve the lives of a billion people," he says.

Vitamin D doesn't prevent disease for most, study says

itamin D supplements do not help prevent disease for the majority of people, according to a new study published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal.

During the bleak winter months of short days and cloudy skies, many people may seek out the benefits of sunshine in bottle form and reach for supplements of vitamin D. Made naturally by the skin when exposed to sunlight, this vitamin is needed to maintain healthy bones, teeth and muscles and to prevent them from becoming brittle and at risk of fracture.

But a review of evidence from clinical trials on the impact of supplements has found that attempting to get vitamin D through supplements is not so beneficial.

"We conclude that current evidence does not support the use of vitamin D supplementation to prevent disease," said Mark Bolland, associate professor of medicine at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in a statement. Bolland led the research with Alison Avenell, a clinical chair in health sciences research at the University of Aberdeen.

According to the team, clinical trials have failed to show that supplementation reduces the risk posed by falls and fractures to bones and muscles. But they recognize that it may be beneficial in people who are at high risk, such as those in nursing homes and darker-skinned people living in colder climates.

To those at risk, researchers do recommend supplements during autumn and winter but also suggest getting advice on how best to get vitamin D naturally. "Vitamin D will protect people who are at high risk," Avenell said.

Natural sources

In spring and summer in the far regions of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, such as the northern US and New Zealand, people tend to produce enough vitamin D through sunlight on their skin and foods in their diet. The vitamin helps the body absorb calcium to promote bone growth.

Getting enough vitamin D, calculated as 15 micrograms for ages 1 through 70 in the United States, also prevents rickets in children and osteomalacia -- bone softening -- in adults. "We're taking about preventing these diseases," said Avenell.

But during autumn and winter, levels drop. It helps to eat the right foods, such as oily fish, egg yolks, red meat and liver, to keep levels high inside the body -- which not everyone can achieve adequately. Fortified foods, including milk, cereals and spreads, provide the most vitamin D in the American diet, according to theNational Institutes of Health.

"In the US, vitamin D supplementation (through food) is higher," Avenell said.

In countries like the UK, however, foods are not fortified as often, and supplements are therefore recommended. Until recently, recommendations were mainly to people at high risk of rickets and osteomalacia, but this summer, Public Health England advised that everyone take the equivalent of 10 micrograms per day.

"That's a big change," Avenell said. "We don't think the evidence supports the necessity for that during winter."

In a separate article, also published Wednesday, Dr. Louis Levy, head of nutrition science at Public Health England, argued that the recommended dose is backed by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, which also reviewed the evidence.

"When the days are darker and shorter and sun exposure is minimal, people should consider a daily 10 microgram vitamin D supplement, as it's difficult to get enough through diet alone," he said in a statement.

But Avenell's research argues that the supplements make no difference.

"They're unlikely to do any harm," she said. "But in the adult population, supplementing at the Public Health England levels does not prevent falls or fractures."

Research was also inconclusive on other benefits claimed to be associated with vitamin D. "We didn't see any conclusive evidence of vitamin D protecting against other conditions like heart disease or cancer (either)," she said.

An ongoing debate

The pros and cons of vitamin D have long been debated, but with this review questioning their benefit -- except among those at high risk -- many experts have pushed back in fear of the consequences if people stop taking them.

"Failure to address low vitamin D status during childhood, adolescence, for women of childbearing age and in the elderly could have serious long-term implications for public health," said David Richardson, visiting professor of food bioscience at the University of Reading. "Action is needed now in the face of growing evidence of a high prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency."

Martin Hewison, professor of molecular endocrinology at the University of Birmingham, agreed.

"It is clear that people in the UK are at high risk of vitamin D deficiency, particularly in winter," he said, though he highlighted Avenell's point that supplements are particularly "relevant for people at high risk of deficiency: those with darker skin from African, Afro-Caribbean and South Asian backgrounds; people who are confined indoors; and people who cover up their skin while outdoors."

Hewison also highlighted various levels of confusion and unknowns that persist around the issue. "There is still some debate about what levels of vitamin D count as deficiency, and this varies according to the disease being studied," he said.

"(But) the take-home message is that we need to know more about how vitamin D works before planning new clinical trials to assess its health benefits. In the meantime, Public Health England's vitamin D recommendations are conservative and sensible, and people should be following them."