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Washington, Feb 23: U.S. president Donald Trump on Saturday said he was looking forward to being with his "great friends" in India next week as he retweeted a short video in which his face was superimposed on the hit movie-character Bahubali, showing the president as a great saviour bringing peace to his kingdom.

Trump will pay a state visit to India on February 24 and 25, accompanied by a high-level delegation including first lady Melania Trump, his daughter Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner and a galaxy of top American officials.

"Look so forward to being with my great friends India!" Trump said in the tweet.

Along with the tweet, Trump retweeted an 81-second video by a Twitter account identified as "Sol" with the handle Solmemes1.

"To celebrate Trump's visit to India I wanted to make a video to show how in my warped mind it will go... USA and India united!" the handle Solmemes1 tweeted in the original post with the video.

Trump appears as a great saviour, in the short animated clip, riding on a chariot with Melania. A few stills later, Trump is seen riding a horse carrying on his shoulders his son Donald Jr and daughter Ivanka.

Later, he is welcomed by Narendra Modi in a village setting. Hundreds and thousands of people are seen welcoming Trump in the video.

"This week Trump will visit India and in celebration I have created a new meme for the occasion... You few, who are my patrons, get to see it first!" Sol told viewers on subscription content service Patreon on Saturday. A few hours later, Trump retweeted the video.

In the Twitter description, Sol describes herself as "award winning master memetician, professor of memology at University of GFY, my views are my own and not associated with real life."

The Trump-Bahubali video, which ends with "USA and India United", went viral after Trump retweeted it. In a few hours, it was seen by nearly 6 lakh people.

Sol in one of her previous posts, dated January 23, writes she was inspired by a video of Bahubali sent to her by a friend, which is the story of 'good defeating evil.'

This inspired Sol to create her first Bahubali-theme meme. The video, lasting 93 seconds, is titled "Jiyo Re Baahu Trump", in which the first lady is seen wearing a saree. "Jiyo Re Bahubali," is the theme song of the video.

"I just loved this video when I saw it! A friend sent it to me and he told me that it is the story of good defeating evil... it was so fitting I had to make it (meme)..." Sol wrote in her post.

Sol's posts show that she is an admirer of Trump. Sol's January 23 video was released at the peak of Trump's impeachment proceedings.

Trump is seen being greeted by an elephant, which bears the logo of the Republican Party.

Towards the end of the video, Trump is seen riding the elephant, and putting on fire the effigy of "Raavan" marked as "D" in a big circle representing the opposition Democratic Party.

An arrow is given by warrior Narendra Modi to the First Lady, who then passes it on to Trump, before he lights the effigy.

New York, Jun 4: The Minneapolis police officer who used his knee to pin down George Floyd's neck before his death was the most experienced of the four officers involved in the arrest, with a record that included medals for bravery and 17 complaints against him, including one for pulling a woman out of her car during a speeding stop.

New details about Derek Chauvin and the other now-fired officers emerged Wednesday after prosecutors upgraded Chauvin's charge to second-degree murder and charged the others with aiding and abetting in a case that has convulsed the nation with protests over race and police brutality.

Heavily redacted personnel files show that Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the force, was initially trained as a cook and served in the Army as a military police officer.

Eleven-year veteran and native Hmong speaker Tou Thao began as a community service officer and was the subject of six complaints.

The other two officers were relative newcomers to the department, including Thomas Lane, a former juvenile detention guard who did volunteer work with Somali refugees, and J. Alexander Kueng, who got his start in law enforcement by patrolling his college campus and a department store.

The files were notable for what they didn't include. Only one of the 17 complaints against Chauvin was detailed, none of the six against Thao were mentioned and there was no further detail about a 2017 excessive force lawsuit against Thao.

Records show that the 44-year-old Chauvin initially studied cooking before taking courses in law enforcement and doing two stints in the Army as a military police officer in the late 1990s, serving at Fort Benning, Georgia, and in Germany.

Chauvin became a Minneapolis police officer in 2001 and the lone reprimand in his file involved a 2007 incident when he was accused of pulling a woman out of her car after stopping her for going 10 mph (16 kph) over the speed limit.

Investigators found it was not necessary for Chauvin to remove the woman from the car and noted that his squad car video was turned off during the stop.

But Chauvin was also singled out for bravery. Files show he won two medals of valor, one in 2006 for being part of a group of officers who opened fire on a stabbing suspect who pointed a shotgun at them, and another in 2008 for a domestic violence incident in which Chauvin broke down a bathroom door and shot a suspect in the stomach.

He also won medals of commendation in 2008 after he and his partner tackled a fleeing suspect who had a pistol in his hand, and in 2009 for single-handedly apprehending a group of gang members while working as an off-duty security guard at the El Nuevo Rodeo, a Minneapolis nightclub.

Since his arrest, the former owner of the club, Maya Santamaria, said Chauvin and Floyd both worked as security guards there at various times but that she wasn't sure if they had known one another.

She said Chauvin was unnecessarily aggressive on nights when the club had a black clientele, quelling fights by dousing the crowd with pepper spray and calling in several police squad cars as backup, a tactic she called “overkill.”

Chauvin's wife, Kellie, a Laotian immigrant who became the first Hmong winner of the Mrs. Minnesota pageant, said shortly after his arrest last week that she intends to divorce him.

Before news of the upgraded charges, an attorney for Chauvin said he was not making any statements at this time. Lawyers for the others did not return messages seeking comment.

In cellphone video of the May 25 arrest of Floyd, Chauvin is shown pressing his knee onto Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes while Floyd cries out “I can't breathe” and eventually stops moving.

During much of the arrest, Kueng and Lane were helping Chauvin restrain Floyd. Thao was standing nearby keeping onlookers back.

According the complaint, at one point during the arrest, as Chauvin held Floyd down with his knee, Lane asked Chauvin twice whether they should roll Floyd over.

“No, staying put where we got him,” Chauvin replied, “I am worried about excited delirium or whatever,” Lane said. And Chauvin replied again, “That's why we have him on his stomach.” None of the three officers moved from their positions.

Lane joined the police early last year as a 35-year-old cadet — much older than most rookies — and became a full-fledged officer last December. He had no complaints in his file during his short time on the force.

On employment forms, the University of Minnesota graduate said he done volunteer work tutoring Somali youth and as a mentor helping at-risk elementary school students with reading and homework.”

Kueng, at 26 the youngest of the four officers, was also a recent recruit to the police force. He completed his year's probation just three months before the Floyd arrest.

His personnel file, which notes that he speaks, reads and writes Russian, did not include any commendations or disciplinary actions during his short time on force.

Kueng was a 2018 graduate of the University of Minnesota, where he worked part-time as part of the campus security force. He also worked nearly three years as a theft-prevention officer at Macy's.

Thao joined the police force part-time in 2008 while attending a community college. Before that, he worked as a security guard, a supermarket stocker and trainer at McDonald's.

City records show six complaints were filed against Thao, but there was no mention of that in the records released Wednesday. There also was no mention of a 2017 federal lawsuit accusing him and another officer of excessive force.

According to the lawsuit, Lamar Ferguson claimed that in 2014, Thao and his partner stopped him and beat him up while he was on his way to his girlfriend's house. The lawsuit was settled for $25,000 ___

Richmond reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press writer Scott Bauer in Madison and researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

London, May 12: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that a mass vaccine for the novel coronavirus may be over a year away and, in the worst-case scenario, may in fact never be found.

In his foreword to the government’s new 50-page guidance on a step by step easing of the lockdown measures in place to control the spread of the deadly virus, the UK prime minister lays out plans for businesses to gradually start reopening with “COVID-19 Secure” measures of social distancing and for the public to use “good solid British common sense” as the economy is unlocked.

“A mass vaccine or treatment may be more than a year away,” said Johnson, highlighting the work being done in the UK by scientists at Oxford University and Imperial College London towards this mission.

“Indeed, in a worst-case scenario, we may never find a vaccine. So our plan must countenance a situation where we are in this, together, for the long haul, even while doing all we can to avoid that outcome,” he said.

Admitting that a vaccine or drug-based treatment is the only “feasible long-term solution”, he said the UK has accelerated this with “promising” vaccine development programmes and a collaboration between Oxford University and pharma major AstraZeneca was a vital step that could help rapidly advance the manufacture of a Covid-19 vaccine when it is ready.

As part of global efforts, he flagged the GBP 388 million in aid funding for research into vaccines, tests and treatment, including GBP 250m to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

“But while we hope for a breakthrough, hope is not a plan,” he said, as he unveiled his plan for starting to lift lockdown restrictions from this week in phases.

Following a televised address to the nation on Sunday night and a statement in Parliament on Monday, the guidance comes into effect in public life across England from Wednesday when people will be allowed one-to-one contact with people other than those they live with, as long as they remain outside and two metres apart.

They are allowed to play sport with a friend or family member from outside their household or socialise with them in the open air for the first time in more than six weeks since the lockdown was imposed.

People are still advised to work from home where possible but start heading into work where necessary, in sectors such as construction and manufacturing, keeping the social distancing norms in place.

Under the step by step plan, by the start of next month non-essential shops will also reopen, with some hairdressers, pubs and cinemas to follow from July. However, as part of a Covid-19 Alert System, if infection rates are seen to be rising again, restrictions would be tightened “possibly at short notice”.

Fines for breaching the new rules will also be increased to GBP 100 and will double for each repeat offence, up to a maximum of GBP 3,200.

Johnson said: "I must ask the country to be patient with a continued disruption to our normal way of life, but to be relentless in pursuing our mission to build the systems we need. The worst possible outcome would be a return to the virus being out of control – with the cost to human life, and – through the inevitable re-imposition of severe restrictions – the cost to the economy. We must stay alert, control the virus, and in doing so, save lives.

“Then, as vaccines and treatment become available, we will move to another new phase, where we will learn to live with Covid-19 for the longer term without it dominating our lives.”

The devolved administrations of Scotland and Wales are putting their own measures in place and keeping the “stay at home” message in place, rather than switch to the new “stay alert” message.

The UK government’s latest messaging has come under attack from the Opposition and other sections of society over a feared lack of clarity for the general public.